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A CONTRIBUTION TO HISTORY. 



EDWIN M.STANTON: 



His Character and Public Services on the 
Eve of the Rebellion, 



AS 



PRESENTED IN A SERIES OF PAPERS 



y 

Hox. HENRY WILSOl!^, Senator from Massachusetts, 

AND THE 

Hon. J. S. BLACK, or Pennsylvania. 



rUBLISIIKD BY 

COLE, M O R W I T Z & CO., 

EASTON weekly ARGUS, 
1^71. 



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^^ 



A CONTBIBUTION TO HISTORY, 



EDWIN M. STANTON: 



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o 



HIS CHARACTER AND PUBLIC SERVICES ON THE 
EYE OF THE REBELLION, 



PKESENTED IN A SERIES OF PAPERS 



BY THE 



<"'' 



Hon. henry WILSON, Senator from Massachusetts, 

AND THE 

Hon. J. S. BLACK, of Pennsylvania. 




PUBLISHED BY 

COLE, MORWITZ & CO., 

easton weekly argus, 

easton, pa. 

isn. 






PKEFATORY I^OTE. 



The papers which follow have been copied, without abridgment or alteration, 
from the journals in which they were first published — to wit, the articles of 
Mr. Wilson, from the Atlantic Monthly, and those of Judge Black, with the 
exception of his letter to Mr. Hoar, from the Galaxy. 

The passage of the sheets through the press has been watched with great 
care, and it is believed the pamphlet will be found to contain no material 
errors. 



•^^^^c. 



EDWIN M. STAXTOISr. 7 

tlie camp, in the battle-field, or in the Rebel prison. And wlien, on the 
27th of December, he was borne throngh the streets of the capital to his 
last resting-place in Oak Hill Cemetery, the people felt they were follow- 
ing a martyr to his tomb no less than when Sedgwick, Wadsworth, and 
Lincoln were carried through the same streets to their bnrial. 

When time shall have elapsed, and the passions and prejudices engen- 
dered by the strife shall have subsided, when the records of events and 
acts shall have come to light, and the philosophic historian shall, with 
those records, lay bare the motives and purposes of the actors in that con- 
flict, Edwin M. Stanton will stand forth conspicuous among the illustri- 
ous characters of the era. It will then be seen that he wielded vast 
power, and largely influenced results. I now propose simply to speak of 
Mr. Stanton as I knew him, of his services as I saw them, and of his 
cljaracteristics as they revealed themselves to me in the varying phases of 
the struggle. While he was in the cabinets of Lincoln and Johnson, it 
was my privilege to occupy the position of chairman of the Military Com- 
mittee of the Senate, and our official relations were necessarily intimate 
and confidential. The legislation requisite for raising, equipping, and gov- 
erningthe armies, and the twenty-five thousand nominations of officers, from 
the second lieutenants up to the General-in-Chief, which passed through 
my committee while he was in the War Department, were often the subject 
of conference and consideration between us. His office was open to me 
at all times by day and night. I saw him in every circumstance and con- 
dition of the war, in the glow of victory and in the gloom of defeat. Of 
course his modes of thought, his methods of business, and his moods of 
feeling were open to my close observation and careful scrutiny. I came 
to understand, I think, his motives and purposes, to comprehend his plans, 
and to realize something of the value of his public services. 

I first knew Mr. Stanton during the closing hours of Mr. Buchanan's 
weak and wicked administration. On the election of Mr. Lincoln, South 
Carolina, trained for thirty years in the school of treason, leaped headlong 
into rebellion. Other States followed her example. Southern senators 
and representatives came to Congress, and, with official oaths on their 
perjured lips, plotted against the peace and unity of their country. Con- 
spiracies were rife in the Cabinet, in Congress, in the departments, in the 
army, in the navy, and among the citizens of the capital, for the over- 
throw of the government and the dismemberment of the Union. 

Day by day, during that terrible winter, loyal men in Congress saw 
with profound sorrow their riven and shattered country sinking into the 
fathomless abyss of disunion. The President and the Attorney-General 
surrendered the government's rights of self-preservation by assuring the 
conspirators that " no power had been delegated to Congress to coerce 
into submission a State which is attempting to withdraw, or which has 
entirely withdrawn from the confederacy." The Secretary of the Trea- 
sury was deranging the finances and sinking the national credit. The Sec- 
retary of War was scattering the little array, and sending muskets, can- 
non, and munitions of war where they could be clutched by the conspira- 
tors. The Secretary of the Interior was permitting the robbery of trust 
funds, and revealing to traitors the action of his government. A New 
England Secretary of the Navy waa rendering that arm of the service 
powerless for the national defence. Northern politicians were ostenta- 
tiously giving pledges "never to vote a man or a dollar for coercion," 
and assuring the conspirators, who were seizing forts, arsenals, and arms, 



8 EDWIN M. STAXTOX. 

and raising batteries for assault or defence, that troops, raised for the sub- 
jugation of the South, " must pass over their dead bodies." Officers of 
the Senate and of the executive departments were members of secret or- 
ganizations that nightly plotted treason in the national capital. 

It was a time of peril, anxiety, and gloom. Patriotic men can hardly 
recall those days of apostasy without a shudder. President Buchanan 
was weak and wavering. Mr. Stanton, whom he had consulted before the 
meeting of Congress, had advised him to incorporate into his message the 
doctrine that the Federal government had the power, and that it was its 
duty, to coerce seceding States. But timid and treasonable counsels pre- 
vailed, and the patriotic and vigorous advice of Mr. Stanton was rejected. 
The plottings and intrigues of the secessionists and the fatal weakness of 
the President alarmed the veteran Secretary of State. With large intel- 
ligence and experience, General Cass had little strength of will or tena- 
city of purpose. But whatever may have been his faults and shortcom- 
ings, he was a true patriot, and ardently loved his native land. The threat- 
ening aspect of public affairs greatly excited the aged statesman. The 
secession leaders sought to impress on the mind of the President the idea 
that his Secretary of State was losing his mind ; but a loyal Democrat, 
to whom the President communicated his apprehensions, aptly replied that 
General Cass was the only sane man in his Cabinet. Feeling that he 
could no longer serve his country by continuing in the Cabinet, the Sec- 
retary retired, leaving to Joseph Holt, then Postmaster- General, the press- 
ing injunction to remain, and, if possible, save the endangered nation. 

On his retirement, Attorney- General Black, who had pronounced 
against the power of the government to coerce a seceding State, and who 
maintained that the attempt to do so " would be the expulsion of such 
State from the Union," and would absolve all the States "from their fed- 
eral obligations," and the people from contributing " their, money or their 
blood to carry on a contest like that," was made Secretary of State. In 
the terrible conflict through which the nation has passed, there has been 
a general recognition, by men not given to superstition, of the hand of 
God in its progress. And in that eventful history nowhere did the Di- 
vine interposition appear more evident than in the appointment of Mr. 
Stanton as Attorney-General. That the vacillating President, at such 
a crisis, with his disloyal Cabinet and traitorous associates, should have 
offered the vacant Cabinet office to that strong, rugged, downright, patri- 
otic man, was strikingly providential. 

On the evening of the day when he took the oath of ofiBce, he said to 
a friend that he had taken the oath to support the Constitution of his 
country, and that he would keep that oath in letter and in spirit. Faith- 
fully did he keep his pledge amid the apostasies that followed. He was 
a marvel of resolution and vigor, of industry and vigilance. His words 
and acts were instinct with the loyalty which glowed in his bosom. His 
soul seemed on 6re. He saw treason in every part of the government, 
and sought to unmask those who were plotting its overthrow. He set 
his face sternly against the conspirators, and showered upon their heads 
his withering rebukes. Rising in that crisis above the claims of partisan- 
ship, he consecrated himself to the lofty duties of an exalted patriotism. 
In the Cabinet he urged bold and decisive action. He counselled often 
with the aged veteran. General Scott, and with leading statesmen, and 
be gave patriotic advice to the meml)ers of the Peace Congress. 

He went even farther. He put himself in communication with the 



EDWIN M. STANTON. 9 

Republicans in Congress, and kept them well informed of what was 
going on in the councils of the administration directly relating to the 
dangers of the country. The House of Representatives had raised a 
conimittee to investigate treasonable machinations and conspiracies. 
Howard of Michigan and Dawes of Massachusetts, zealous Republicans, 
were upon it. So was Reynolds, an earnest and patriotic member from 
New York ; Cochrane from the same State, then much of a Democratic 
partisan ; and Branch, who was killed fighting in the ranks of the Rebels. 
Mr. Stanton was so anxious to baffle the conspirators, that he made an ar- 
rangement by which Messrs. Howard and Dawes were informed of what- 
ever occurred tending to endanger the country, and which he desired 
should be thwarted by the friends of the incoming administration. He 
believed that Mr. Toucey, Secretary of the Navy, was false to his country, 
and that he ought to be arrested. Tlie resolution concerning him, intro- 
duced into the House by Mr. Dawes, was inspired by Mr. Stanton. 

A committee of vigilance was organized by the more active Republican 
members of Congress. I was a member of that committee, as was also 
Mr. Colfax. It was in that time of intense anxiety and trial that I be- 
came acquainted with Mr. Stanton, and consulted with him, and received 
from him warnings and suggestions. He was in almost daily consultation, 
too, with members of both Houses. In one of the most critical periods, 
Mr. Sumner, who made his acquaintance soon after entering Congress, 
visited Mr. Stanton at the Attorney-General's office. Being surrounded 
by false and treacherous men who watched his every word and act, he led 
Mr. Sumner from his office, told him that he did not dare to hold con- 
versation with him there, and made an appointment to call upon him at 
one o'clock in the morning. At that hour, he made the promised call, 
and explained to him the perilous condition of the country, and suggested 
plans of action for the loyal men in Congress. 

Of course such intense patriotism, sleepless vigilance, and tireless 
activity brought him in conflict with disloyal men both in the Cabinet 
and in Congress. Scenes of thrilling interest were sometimes enacted in 
the Cabinet. Floyd, who had administered the War Department so as 
to disarm the nation and weapon the rising Rebellion, had expected that 
Colonel Anderson, a Southern man, would carry out the Secretary's pur- 
poses in the interest of treason. When that officer abandoned Fort 
Moultrie, which he could not hold, and threw his little force into Fort 
Sumter, which he hoped to hold, Floyd, whose corruptions were coming 
to light, appeared in the Cabinet, raging and storming like the baffled 
conspirator he was. He arraigned the President and Cabinet, and 
charged them with violating their pledges to the secessionists. The 
President — poor, weak old man — trembled and grew pale. Then it was 
that Stanton met the baffled traitor and his fellow-conspirators with a 
storm of fierce and fiery denunciation. His words, voice, and bearing 
are said to have been in the highest degree impressive, and those who 
knew the man can well imagine the thrilling moment when treason and 
loyalty grappled in the persons of such representatives. Floyd at once 
resigned his commission, slunk away from the office he had so prostituted 
into the rebellion, where he achieved neither credit nor success, and soon 
sank into an obscure and dishonored grave. Some time afterwards Mr. 
Stanton drew up a full and detailed account of that Cabinet scene. It 
was read to Mr. Holt, and pronounced by that gentleman to be truthful 
and accurate. It was in the form of a letter to a leaamg Democratic 



10 EDWIN M. STANTON". 

politician of the city of Xew York, but it was never sent. It is hoped, 
however, that for the sake of history, it may soon be placed before the 
public eye. 

To this noble fidelity of Edwin M. Stanton, sustained as it was by the 
patriotism and courage of Joseph Holt and John A. Dix, the country is 
largely indebted for its preservation from the perils which then environed 
it, and for the transmission of the government into the hands of the 
incoming administration. 

After weary months the Fourth of March gladdened the longing hearts 
of patriotic men who had clung to their country when darkness was set- 
tling npon it. The riven and shattered government passed from the 
nerveless hand of that weakness which betrayed like treason, into the 
strong and faithful grasp of Abraham Lincoln. His stainless record, 
and the records of those who gathered about him, gave assurance to all 
the world that, in accepting the guardianship of their imperilled country, 
they would cherish and defend it with all their hearts. The administra- 
tion was quickly forced by the Rebels, who held in their hands, as they 
were solemnly assured by Mr. Lincoln in his Inaugural, "the momentous 
issues of civil war," to summon troops into the tield for national defence. 
Large armies were created and vast quantities of arms and munitions 
were provided. 

But vigorous as was this action of the government, and prompt as 
were the responses of the people, the military movements did not fully 
answer the public expectation. Mr. Stanton, then pursuing his profes- 
sion in Washington, deeply sympathized in this general feeling. His 
knowledge of the public dangers and his earnest and impulsive nature 
made him impatient of delays. To ardent friends who, like him, chafed 
at what seemed to them inaction, he expressed his profound anxieties, 
and he joined them in demanding a more vigorous and aggressive policy. 
More fully than most public men, he comprehended the magnitude of the 
struggle on which the nation had entered, and fathomed, perhaps, more 
deeply its causes. His position in Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet had revealed 
to him the purposes of the Rebel leaders and the spirit of the Rebellion, 
and he knew that slavery was its inspiration. 

Mr. Cameron, Secretary of War, was in advance of the President on 
the slavery question, not perhaps in sentiment and feeling, but in the 
matter of policy. In his first annual report he recommended freeing and 
arming the slaves. Deeming this, however, a delicate matter, he sub- 
mitted the important passage to several of his friends, all of whom, ex- 
cept Mr. Stanton, disapproved of the policy proposed. He cordially 
indorsed it, and, taking his pen, modified one or two sentences, remark- 
ing that he would " fix it so that the lawyers would not carp at it.'' This 
portion of the Secretary's report, it will be remembered, did not meet 
the views of Mr. Lincoln, and he required its suppression. 

The impatience of the public mind at the delays found expression in 
harsh and generally undeserved criticisms upon the War Department. 
Mr. Cameron felt the pressure of the multiplied labors crowded upon 
him, and he was not insensible to adverse criticisms. He proposed to 
resign, provided some one should be appointed not unfriendly to his 
policy. He suggested the appointment of Mr. Stanton. The President 
acted iipon his suggestion, accepted his resignation, and tendered him 
the mission to Russia. Mr. Stanton was then named Secretary of War, 



EDWIN M. STANTON. 11 

with the hearty concurrence of every member of the Cabinet, excepting 
Montgomery Blair, who bitterly opposed the appointment. 

When Mr. Stanton entered the Cabinet he was in the maturity of his 
physical and intellectual powers. Without fancy or imagination, or any 
of the lighter graces, he had been distinguished, as a lawyer, for his im- 
mense industry, for the thoroughness of his preparation, and the mastery, 
both of law and facts, he exhibited in his treatment of the causes in- 
trusted to his care. He carried into the War Department great capacity 
for labor, almost incredible powers of endurance, rapidity of decision, 
promptitude of action, and inflexibility of purpose, all inspired and im- 
pelled by a vehement and absorbing patriotism. 

He entered at once upon an exhaustive examination of the numbers 
and condition of the military forces, and of the amount of war materials 
necessary for arming, equipping, feeding, clothing, and transporting them. 
He then vigorously engaged in the work of rendering these means avail- 
able for the spring campaign. He met, by appointment, the Military 
Committee of the Senate, in their room at the Capitol, and, in the strictest 
confidence, made to them a full exhibit of the number of troops, and the 
condition of the armies, of the amount of arms and munitions of war on 
hand and required. He then explained his purposes and plans. He had 
found more than a hundred and fifty regiments scattered over the country, 
only partially filled, and but slowly filling up. For the sake of economy, 
and for the purpose of bringing these bodies early into the field, he pro- 
posed their consolidation. He was convinced, however, that this task 
would be a difficult one. Many persons who were engaged in recruiting, 
and who hoped to be officers, would be disappointed. They and the 
State authorities would strenuously oppose consolidation. To husband 
resources of money and men, and to make the troops already enlisted 
available at the earliest possible moment, he proposed to suspend enlist- 
ments, though only for a few weeks. Thinking it might lead to some 
misunderstanding in Congress, he desired to explain his reasons for the 
measure, and to solicit the support of the committee in carrying it into 
effect. The promised support was promptly given. The ordei* was is- 
sued, and, though it was misunderstood and sharply criticized, it unques- 
tionably added much to the efficiency of the army. In this, as in all 
other matters during the war, the Secretary and the committee were in 
accord, and their relations were perfectly amicable. Though composed 
of men of differing political sentiments, the committee never divided poli- 
tically, either on nominations or measures. When the strife had ended, 
it was a source of great gratification to its members that they had always 
complied with the Secretary's wishes, and promptly seconded his efforts. 
To me it has been, and will ever be, among the cherished recollections of 
my life, that I gave to the great War Secretary an unstinted support, 
and that there was never misunderstanding or unkindness between us. 

Having mastered the details of his department, Mr. Stanton pressed, 
vrith great vigor, the preparations for the active campaign of 1862. He 
strove to enforce an active prosecution of hostilities, and urged forward 
the work of suppressing the Rebellion by every practicable means in his 
power. Early and late, often through the entire night, he was at his 
post, receiving reports, information, requests, and suggestions, by tele- 
graph and mail, holding personal consultations with the military and 
civil officers of the government, and others having business with his de- 
partment, and in issuing orders and directions. As he did not spare 



12 EDWIN M. STANTON. 

himself, he was exacting in his demands upon others. He tolerated no 
laggards or sliirks about him. He infused into the chiefs of the bureajas 
and their clerks something of his own industry and devotion; and his 
became a department of intense activity and unceasing toil, continuing 
thus throughout the war. 

But all did not possess Mr. Stanton's iron will, capacity for labor, 
and powers of endurance, and many sank beneath these exactions and 
accumulated labors. He brought into his office, as Assistant Secretary 
of War, Mr. Watson, a devoted personal friend, a lawyer of eminence, 
and a man of strong constitntion and large capacity for work. Mr. 
Watson zealously seconded Mr. Stanton's efforts, but was soon forced to 
leave office, worn out by the demands made upon him. Mr. Walcott, 
who had been Attorney-General of Ohio, took Mr. Watson's place. But 
he, too, after a few months, left the Office, and went home to die. The 
vacant place was then taken by Mr. Dana, a gentleman accustomed to 
the exacting toil of a leading daily journal, and possessing great execu- 
tive force, who rendered his chief most valuable service. His labors 
were lightened by the establishment of the office of Solicitor of the War 
Department, to which the innumerable legal questions constantly arising 
were referred. The duties of that office were ably performed by Mr. 
Whiting, of Massachusetts, who sacrificed the income of a lucrative pro- 
fession without other reward than the consciousness of serving his coun- 
try in her time of peril. 

It is not my purpose to recount the acts of Mr. Stanton's administration 
of the War Department during the Rebellion. This must be the task of the 
historian. When this is faithfully and fully accomplished, it will be seen 
that he performed an amount of organizing and administrative labor as 
far exceeding the achievements of Carnot and other war ministers, as 
the gigantic proportions of the Rebellion exceeded those of the military 
events with which their names are associated. Mr. Stanton was moreover 
compelled to organize the forces of a people unaccustomed to war, and 
unskilled in military affairs. Vast armies were to be raised from peace- 
ful communities, large amounts of war material were to be provided, 
great distances were to be traversed, and an impassioned and brave peo- 
ple were to be subdued. The work which the soldiers and statesmen of 
Europe pronounced impossible was done, and well done. I shall not at- 
tempt to describe that work. I only propose to delineate some of Mr. 
Stanton's leading characteristics as they appeared to me, and as they were 
illustrated by some of the acts of his administration. 

His official position, his vigilance, his industry, his mastery of details, 
and his almost intuitive perceptions, gave him, perhaps, a clearer insight 
into the characters and services of men in the army, in the national coun- 
cils, and in State governments, than that possessed by any other public 
man. With the impulsiveness of his nature, he distrusted and condemned 
perhaps too hastily, and sometimes unjustly, but never, I am sure, from 
interest or prejudice. Swift in his judgments, often doubting when 
others confided, he sometimes made mistakes, though events commonly 
vindicated the correctness of his estimates. He had no favorites, and 
he measured men according to his idea of their value to the public service. 

Singularly unselfish in his purposes, careless of his own reputation, and 
intensely devoted to the success of his country, he was ever ready to as- 
sume, especially in critical moments, the gravest responsibilities. Neither 
the interests of political friends, nor the wishes of army officials, could 



EDWIN M. STANTON. 13 

swerve him from his purpose. He said no to the President quite as often 
and quite as emphatically as he did to the people, to members of Con- 
gress, or to officers of the army seeking undeserved preferment or safe 
places at the rear. He knew Mr. Lincoln's yielding nature and kindness 
of heart; and even the President's requests, though amounting almost to 
positive orders, and borne by governors of States, members of Congress, 
and even by associates in the Cabinet, were frequently laid aside, and some- 
times promptly and peremptorily refused. 

There were many signal illustrations of this characteristic. Shortly 
after the disastrous battle of Chickamauga, a dispatch stating the perilous 
condition of the army, and the pressing need of immediate reinforcements, 
was received at the War Office from General Garfield. After the hour 
of midnight, the President, Mr. Chase, and Mr. Seward were summoned 
by Mr. Stanton. It was a most critical and trying moment. In answer 
to questions. General Halleck revealed the fact that few troops operating 
in the West could be sent in season to the relief of Roseerans. The 
facts disclosed perplexed, if they did not dishearten, all but Mr. Stanton, 
who was never downcast, who never doubted the success of the loyal 
cause, who seemed to take heart as dangers thickened, and who now sur- 
prised his listeners by proposing to take thirty thousand men from the 
Army of the Potomac and place them in Tennessee within five days. 
The President and General Halleck doubted, hesitated, and opposed. 
But Mr, Stanton, sustained by Mr. Chase and Mr. Seward, carried his 
point. Telegrams were at once sent to General Meade and to railroad- 
managers, and in a few days. General Hooker, with more than fifteen 
thousand men, was thrown into Tennessee. When he arrived within sup- 
porting distance of Roseerans, Bragg was making movements which he 
believed would result in the utter destruction or defeat of that general's 
army. Chief Justice Chase, who has recorded in his diary the doings of 
that midnight council, and who has, since the war, spoken of it with offi- 
cers of the Rebel army, expresses the opinion that Mr. Stanton's bold 
counsels and decisive action saved the array of Roseerans, and that he 
then rendered greater service to the country than was rendered by any 
civilian during the war. 

On the eve of his second inauguration, Mr. Lincoln expressed to 
members of his Cabinet his purpose, in case General Grant should be 
victorious at Richmond, to allow him to negotiate terms of peace with 
the Rebel leaders. From this Mr. Stanton strongly dissented, and in 
explicit and unequivocal terms declared that no peace ought to be nego- 
tiated by generals in the field, or by any one other than the President 
himself; and he pretty distinctly intimated that, if the President per- 
mitted any one to enter into such negotiations, it was hardly necessary 
for him to be inaugurated, Mr. Lincoln at once assented to the views 
of his faithful and far-seeing Secretary, and orders were immediately 
transmitted to General Grant to hold no conferences with General Lee 
on any questions not of a purely military character. The sagacity of 
Mr, Stanton was soon again put to the test. After the surrender of 
Richmond, President Lincoln visited that city, and, while there, assented 
to the assembling of the Rebel Legislature of Virginia by General Weit- 
zel, Mr. Stanton, who had no confidence in the good faith of the 
Rebels, held that they should not have any voice in fixing the terms of 
peace and reconciliation, and should not be permitted to meet at all. 



14 EDWIN M. STANTON. 

His earnest protests were heeded, his counsels prevailed, and the impoli- 
tic and dangerous scheme vvas abandoned. 

Mr. Stanton's course touching the arrangements between General 
Sherman and the Rebel General Johnston afforded another signal illus- 
tration of his readiness to assume responsibility when the safety and 
honor of the nation were at stake. He gave that arrangement a prompt, 
peremptory, and emphatic disapproval. While he held General Sherman 
in high esteem for his brilliant services in the tield, he felt constrained to 
advise President Johnson to set aside that oflScer's unfortunate diplomacy, 
and to declare to the conntry the reasons for so doing. Although Gene- 
ral Grant was sent to North Carolina to announce the action of the 
government. General Sherman and several of his generals took umbrage, 
and on the arrival of their army at Washington indulged in severe de- 
nunciations of the Secretary of War. But the indomitable Secretary, 
conscious of the integrity of his purpose, bore in silence these criticisms, 
and the denunciations directed against him by a portion of the press. In 
the light of subsequent events, few loyal men will question the wisdom 
of his action, or distrust the motives that prompted it. 

Innumerable instances of a similar kind might be adduced. A single 
additional example will be mentioned. When in the winter of 1863 the 
faithless Legislature of Indiana was dissolved, no appropriations had 
been made to carry on the State government or aid in putting soldiers 
in the field ; and General Morton was obliged, without the authority of 
law, to raise more than a million and a quarter of dollars. In his need 
he looked to Washington for assistance. President Lincoln wished to 
aid him, but saw no way to do it, as no money could be taken from the 
treasury without appropriation. He was referred to Mr. Stanton. The 
Secretary saw at a glance the critical condition in which the patriotic 
Governor, who had shown such vigor in raising and organizing troops, 
had been placed. A quarter of a million dollars were needed, and Mr. 
Stanton took upon himself the responsibility, and drew his warrant upon 
the treasury for that amount, to be ])aid from an unexpended appropria- 
tion made, nearly two years before, for raising troops in States in in- 
surrection. As he placed this warrant in Governor ^lorton's hands, the 
latter remarked : " If the cause fails, you and I will be covered with pro- 
secutions, and probably imprisoned or driven from the country." Mr. 
Stantou replied : " If the cause fails, I do not wish to live." The money 
thus advanced to the Governor of Indiana was accounted for by that 
State in its final settlement with the government. 

The remark just cited illustrates another prominent trait in Mr. Stan- 
ton's character — his intense and abounding patriotism. It was this which 
emboldened him in his early struggle with treason in Mr. Buchanan's 
cabinet, upheld him in his superhuman labors through the weary years of 
war, and kei)t him in Mr. Johnson's cabinet when not only was the 
President seeking his removal, but the tortures of disease were admo- 
nishing him that every day's continuance was imperilling his life. It was 
this patriotism which invested the Kebellion, in his view, with its tran- 
scendent enormity, and made him regard its guilty leaders and their sym- 
pathizers and apologists at the North with such intense abhorrence. It 
"also made him fear the success of a party of which he was once a mem- 
ber, and which now embraces so many who participated in the l-tebellion 
or were in sympathy with it; and he was loath to remove the disabilities 
of unrepentant rebels, or to allow them a voice in shaping the policy of 



EDWIN M, STANTON. 15 

States lately in insurrection. This feeling he retained till the close of 
his life. On the Saturday before his death, he expressed to me the 
opinion that it was more important that the freedraen and the Union 
men of the South should be protected in their rights, than that those 
w ho were still disloyal should be relieved of their disabilities and clothed 
with power. 

This patriotism, conjoined with his energy, industry, and high sense of 
public duty, made him exacting, severe, and often rough in his treatment 
of those, in the military or civil service, who seemed to be more intent 
on personal ease, promotion, and emolument than upon the faithful dis- 
charge of public duty. It led him, also, warmly to appreciate and ap- 
plaud fidelity and devotion, wherever and however manifested. Honest 
himself, he, of course, abhorred everything like dishonesty in others ; but 
his patriotism intensified that feeling of detestation in cases of pecula- 
tion or fraud upon the government. He laid a strong hand upon offend- 
ers, and no doubt saved millions of dollars to the nation, by thus re- 
straining, through fear, those who would otherwise have enriched them- 
selves at their country's expense. This spirit of patriotic devotion 
indeed often inspired measures which brought upon him great and un- 
deserved censure- The people were anxious for war news. The press 
were anxious to provide it. Mr. Stanton knew that the enemy largely 
profited by the premature publication of such intelligence, and he was 
anxious to prevent this. Consequently he made regulations which were 
often embarrassing to newspaper correspondents, and sometimes he 
roughly and rudely repelled those seeking information or favors. 

Towards the close of the war his intense application began to tell on 
even his robust constitution, developing a tendency to asthma, which was 
exceedingly distressing to him and alarming to his friends. Consequently 
he looked forward to the cessation of hostilities, anxious not only that his 
country might be saved from the further horrors and dangers of civil war, 
but that he might be released from the burdensome cares of office. After 
the election of Mr. Lincoln and a Republican Congress, in 1864, which 
he justly regarded as fatal to the Rebellion, he often avowed his purpose 
to resign at the moment hostilities should cease. When, therefore, the 
news of Lee's surrender reached Washington, he at once placed his resig- 
nation in the President's hands, on the ground that the work which had 
induced him to take office was done. But his great chief, whom he had 
so faithfully and efficiently served, and who, in the trials they bad expe- 
rienced together, had learned to appreciate, honor, and love him, threw 
his arms around his neck, and tenderly and tearfully said : " Stanton, 
you have been a good friend and a faithful public servant; and it is not 
for you to say when you will no longer be needed here." Bowing to the 
will of the President so affectionately expressed, he remained at his post. 
Little did he then imagine that, within a few hours, his chief would fall 
by the assassin's hand, and the Secretary of State lie maimed and help- 
less, and that the country, in that perilous hour, would instinctively turn 
to him as its main reliance and hope. Andrew Johnson, too, who then 
intended to make treason odious and punish traitors, leaned on the strong 
man for support. 

Mr. Stanton now resolved to remain in the War Office till the army should 
be disbanded ; and that great work was accomplished with an ease and 
celerity which surprised and gratified the country and astonished the 
world. It was indeed one of the most marvellous achievements of the 



16 EDWIN M. STANTON. 

war. That was hardly accomplished, when the work of reconstruction 
began to loom up in all its vast proportions. Indications, too, of the 
President's apostasy began to appear. Mr. Johnson had been smitten 
with the idea of a re-election by means of the reorganization of parties, 
in which, to use his own words, "the extremes should be sloughed ofl",'' 
and a new conservative party be formed which should accept him as its 
leader. 

Mr. Stanton was a just and humane as well as a patriotic man. He 
had earnestly pressed upon Mr. Lincoln the policy of emancipation, had 
applauded his Proclamation, approved the enlistment of colored troops, 
and was a warm supporter of the Thirteenth Amendment, forever pro- 
hibiting slavery. Although he had never, before the war, acted with 
antislavery men, yet he had early imbibed antislavery sentiments. He 
was of Quaker descent. His grandparents were from New England, 
and his grandfather provided in his will for the emancipation of his slaves 
whenever the laws of his adopted State would permit it. Benjamin Lundy, 
the early Abolitionist, was a frequent visitor at his father's house ; and 
Mr. Stanton once told me that he had often sat upon that devoted phi- 
lanthropist's knee when a child, and listened to his words. Nearly thirty 
years ago, in the streets of Columbus, Ohio, he familiarly accosted Mr. 
Chase and said to him, referring to antislavery sentiments the latter had 
just put forth, that he was in entire agreement with him, and hoped he 
should soon be able to take his place by his side. Though he never did 
so, but continued to act with the Democratic party, yet he always main- 
tained his intimacy with Mr. Chase, and after he came to Washington 
was a frequent visitor at the house of Dr. Bailey, editor of the " National 
Era," where he met antislavery men and members of the Republican party. 

The Rebellion of course absolved him from all allegiance to the Demo- 
cratic party, and then his early impressions were revived. The events of 
the war intensified them, and he became a consistent and persistent sup- 
porter of the rights of the colored race. He saw that Mr. Johnson's 
reactionary policy was imperilling the interests of the freedmen as well 
as the safety of the nation, and he resolved to remain in the Cabinet and 
save, as he once said to me, what he could of " the fruits of the war." 
It was, indeed, a critical period, and he wisely counselled moderation. 
Premature action would have been disastrous. To break with the I'resi- 
dent before he had fully revealed his purposes would, he thought, place 
the Republicans in a false position before the people, and inure solely to 
the advantage of Mr. Johnson. At the same time he did all he could to 
secure, in the elections, the success of those who had loyally stood to- 
gether during the war. This policy, of combining and keeping intact 
the Republican party, and of giving the President an opportunity to con- 
vince the people, as he did in his speech of the 22d of February, of his 
premeditated treachery, subjected Mr. Stanton and those who concurred 
with him in that policy to the sharp criticism of more hasty and less dis- 
cerning men. It was, however, a complete success, and subsequent events 
vindicated its wisdom. 

By such firmness, fidelity, and sagacity, Mr. Stanton incurred the dis- 
like of the President, who determined, if possible, to eject him from the 
Cabinet. The more clearly this purpose appeared, the more determined 
was the Secretary to retain his position ; not from a love of office, — for 
he longed to escape from its thraldom, — but from a sense of duty. If 
need be, he was ready to bear, not only the burdens which his failing 



EDWIN M. STANTON. 17 

Rtreng:th made more tryinor, but personal insults and indi<rnities, and, 
hardest of all, to occupy an eqnivocal position which subjected him to 
the distrust and criticism of some of his associates. 

In the summer of 1867 his friends began to fear that his health was 
hopelessly failing, and that unless he took the needed relaxation his life 
was in imminent and immediate peril. He was repeatedly urged to leave 
the heated atmosphere of Washington, and seek at least temporary relief 
at the seashore or in the mountains. As I was pressing this upon him 
one day, he replied that duty required him to remain at his post, that he 
believed the President to be a bad and dangerous ))erson, who was heeding 
the counsels of designing and unscrupulous men, and no one could fore- 
see what he would do. " Life," he said, " is at best a struggle, and of no 
great value. We are but the instruments of Providence in working out 
its purposes. It matters not when, where, or how we die, if we are only 
performing faithfully our duty. I will remain here, if I die in this room." 

A few days before his suspension by the President, while I was at his 
office. General Grant came in, Mr. Stanton was suffering much, and 
seemed anxious and perplexed. At that time he was not a little annoyed 
by the adverse criticisms of two or three Republican journals upon his 
remaining in the Cabinet. " They will some time see," he said, "that I 
am right, and appreciate my motives and vindicate my action." An act 
of the President, showing his hostility to the Secretary of War, and 
his want of confidence in the General of the Army, had just come to 
light. Mr. Stanton remarked that, during the war, he had never felt 
so anxious about public affairs and the condition of the country as 
he did then ; that, in the war, he knew what to depend upon and what 
to do; but no one could depend upon the action of the President. 
General Grant expressed his entire concurrence in that sentiment. A 
few days later, Mr. Stanton was suspended, and General Grant made 
Secretary of War ad interim. The former had long held the office from 
patriotic motives ; and the latter, in accepting it, was actuated by the 
same high considerations. By the action of the Senate, Mr. Stanton was 
brought back into the War Department. When the President attempted 
to thrust him forcibly from it, he, though the hand of disease was weighing 
heavily upon him, exhibited another characteristic evidence of his inflexible 
adherence to principle, and pertinacity of purpose, by encam|)ing in the 
War Office during more than forty days. When, however, the Senate 
failed to convict the President, he bowed before the decision thenun im- 
plied, retired from the position he could no longer maintain, and left the 
responsibility where it rightfully belonged. 

Mr. Stanton has been the subject of the sharpest criticism and of un- 
measured censure. The disloyal, the lukewarm, the incaftable, the selfish, 
and the corrupt have heaped upon his head their coarsest invectives and 
their fiercest denunciations. Nor, indeed, had they much occasion to love 
him ; for towards such the evidences of his disti|)probation were unequi- 
vocal and strong. His natural energy and impulsiveness of character, 
the continuous pressure and exhausting nature of his duties, made him 
often brusque in manner and curt in speech, even to those in whose loy- 
alty, fidelity, and purity he had all confidence. But he seemed ever ready 
to correct mistakes, and make amends to those whom he had wounded or 
aggrieved by hasty words or acts. His heart was full of tenderness for 
every form of suffering and sorrow, and he always had words of sympathy 
for the smitten and afflicted. Many a sick and wounded soldier, and 
2 



18 EDWIN M. STANTON. 

many a family, bereaved by the war, will gratefully cherish the reraera- 
brance of his considerate regard. The same characteristics were exhib- 
ited in the hearty support he gave to the Sanitary and Christian Commis- 
sions, wliich did so much to relieve suffering and sorrow, and in his ready 
co-operation with the officers of the Freedmen's Bureau iu their efforts 
for the newly emancipated race. 

After his retirement from office, Mr. Stanton struggled with mortal 
diseases fastened upon him by the immense responsibilities and labors of 
the war. His closing hours, however, were brightened by the high ap- 
preciation of the government and the flattering manifestations of popular 
regard. The Republican members of the Senate and House, with sin- 
gulq-r unanimity, joined in recommending his appointment as Associate 
Justice of the Supreme Court. The recommendation was sincere and 
hearty. The Chief Magistrate, accompanied by the Vice-President, 
called upon him, tendered him the office, and cordially urged his accept- 
ance. His assent having been given, the President at once sent bis 
nomination to the Senate, and it was confirmed without the formality of 
a reference. This unsolicited action of the members of Congress, and 
the cordial and courteous conduct of the President, were approved by a 
loyal press and applauded by a loyal people. Congratulations flowed in 
upon Mr. Stanton, and he realized, perhaps for the first time, the hold he 
had upon the nation, and the gratitude and confidence of his country- 
men. But in that moment of triumph he was stricken down. As Lin- 
coln fell when the rejoicings of the nation over the capture of the Rebel 
army were ringing in his ear, so fell his trusted counsellor, companion, 
and friend, amid these demonstrations of public favor. So passed from 
earth Edwin Macy Stanton, to take his place in the hearts and memories 
of the people, among the most illustrious, honored, and loved of his coun- 
trymen. 

But large as is my estimate of Mr. Stanton, and high as is the value I 
place upon his unsurpassed public laljors, I do not l)elieve that he was 
absolutely essential to the salvation of the nation. The government that 
survived the death of Lincoln and the life of Johnson did not, during the 
Rebellion, depend for existence on any one man, or any score of men. 
Its preservation must ever redound to the glory of the people, whose 
great uprising, inspired self-sacrifice, and sublime endurance astonished 
the world. The principles involved in that conflict were too vast and 
grand, too vital to humanity and a Christian civilization, to be suff'ered 
to fail through the dismemberment and death of this nation. God and 
the people saved the Republic of the United States. 



SENATOR WILSON AND EDWIN M, STANTON. 19 



SENATOR WILSON AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 

BY HON. J. S. BLACK. 

To the Honorable Henry "Wilson, Senator from Massachusetts : — 

la the February miraber of the "Atlantic Monthly" appeared an article 
of yours entitled " Edwin M. Stanton." It contains some statements 
which are very wonderful, if true ; and if false, they ought to be cor- 
rected. I ask you to review this production in the light of certain facts 
which I shall now take the liberty to mention. 

My principal object is to satisfy you that you have wholly misunder- 
stood the character of Mr. Stanton, and grossly injured him by what you 
supposed to be a panegyric. But before I begin that, suffer me to correct 
some of your errors about other persons. 

In your vituperative description of the Buchanan administration, you 
allege that "the President and his Attorney-General surrendered the 
Government's right of self-preservation" and " pronounced against its 
power to coerce a seceding State." You refer manifestly to the opinion 
of the Attorney-General, dated the 20th of November, 1860, defining the 
duties and powers of the President, and to the public acts of the Presi- 
dent which show that he took the advice of the Law Department and 
squared his conduct accordingly. Upon this ground mainly, if not en- 
tirely, you denounce that administration as not only weak and unpatriotic, 
but wilfijlly wicked and treasonable. I propose to show that you have 
committed a cardinal error, if not something worse. The coarse way in 
which you charge the dead as well as the living with the highest crimes, 
would justify a reply in language much plainer than I intend to use. 

Your modes of thinking and speaking on subjects of this kind are so 
loose and inaccurate, that it is necessary to furnish you with an idea of 
certain elementary principles which to most other men are too familiar to 
talk about. 

1. The government of the United States is the Constitution and laws. 

2. The preservation of the government consists in 7naintaining the 
supremacy of the Constitution and laws. 

3. For this purpose certain coercive powers are delegated to the Ex- 
ecutive, which he may use to defend the laws when they are resisted, 

4. But in this country, as in every other, except where the government 
is an absolute despotism, the authority of the Chief Magistrate is limited 
and his hands are tied up by legal restriction, to prevent him from using 
physical force against the life, liberty, and property of his fellow-citizens, 
unless in certain prescribed ways and on proper occasions. 

5. He is bound by his inaugural oath to keep within those limits ; if 
he breaks the laws, he destroys the government ; he cannot stab the Con- 
stitution in the back because he is afraid that somebody else will strike it 
in the face. 

6. The government of the United States, within its proper sphere, is a 
sovereign, as much as the States are sovereign within their sphere. It 
acts immediately upon the people and claims their direct obedience to its 
laws. As a State cannot make war upon a city, county, or town, and 
put all its inhabitants to the sword because some of them have acted or 



20 SENATOR WILSON AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 

threatened to act illegally, so the General Government is also restrained 
from exterminating the whole population of a State for the offences, actual 
or intended, of some who live among them. 

7. The so-called ordinances of secession in 1860-'61 were the declara- 
tions of certain persons ^vho made them that they intended to disobey 
the laws of the United States. It was the duty of Congress and the 
President to see that forcible resistance to the laws, when actually made, 
should be met by a counter-force sufficient to put it down ; but neither 
Congress nor the President had authority to declare war and begin hosti- 
lities, by anticipation, against all the people at once, and put them all in 
the attitude of public enemies without regard to their personal guilt or 
innocence. 

The opinion of the Attorney-General, which yon have garbled, and the 
messages of President Buchanan, assert these principles in plain English 
words. We held that the whole coercive power of the United States, 
delegated by the Constitution to every branch of the government, judicial, 
legislative, and executive, including its military and naval force, might 
and ought, in the appointed way, to be used to maintain the supremacy 
of the laws against all opposers, to hold or retake the public property, 
and to collect the revenue. But we asserted, also, that powers not given 
ought not to be usurped, and that war upon a State, in the then circum- 
stances of the country, would be not only usurpation, but destruction of 
the Union. 

Of course, you cannot be so ignorant of the fundamental law as not to 
know that our exposition of it was perfectly sound and correct. You 
never pretended — no man with sense enough to know his right hand from 
his left ever will pretend — that the President had constitutional or legal 
authority to make an aggressive war against the States by his own act, 
nor had Congress any such power. But you think I ought not to have 
answered the President's questions truly, and that he ought not to have 
been influenced by constitutional scruples. Tliat is the rub. There is 
no dispute — never was, and never can be — about the law ; but Mr. Bu- 
chanan's wickedr\ess and treason consisted in obeying it when you think 
he ought to have broken it. For this cause you try to excite against his 
memory those bad party passions by which he was hounded and perse- 
cuted during all the last years of his life. 

I will make no effort to convince you that Mr. Buchanan was right in 
standing by the Constitution which he had sworn to preserve, protect, 
and defend. That I know would be altogether ho|)eless. The declared 
admirer of John Brown, the political ally of Jim Lane, the partisan of 
Baker, the advocate of general kidnapping and special murder by military 
commissions, the open supporter of measures which abolish the right of 
trial by jury and build up an Asiatic despotism on the ruins of free 
government — such a man would entirely misunderstand the reason (simple 
as it is) upon which I put the justification of a dead President for refusing 
to perjure himself. But, if I cmmoi justify, perhaps I can excuse him. 
1 will offer some apologies which may possibly disarm your censure, or at 
least mitigate the severity of your righteous indignation. 

In the first place, Mr. Buchanan was born of Christian parents and 
educated in a Chri.stiau community. All his lifetime, and at the moment 
of his death, he felt that fear of God which a respectable authority has 
declared to be, not weakness, but the " beginning of wisdom" and the only 
source of true greatness. The corruptions introduced into the church by 



SEXATOR WILSON AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 21 

the political preachers of New Enp:land never reached him. He was 
simply a Christian man, and a firm believer in the morality taught by the 
New Testament. Now, you know (at all events you must have heard) 
that persons who adhere to that kind of religion always contract a habit 
of regarding the violation of an oath with inexpressible horror, whether 
it be committed by an officer or a witness ; whether the object of it be 
to destroy the character of a political opponent, to promote the interests 
of a party, or to enslave a State. All kinds of false swearing are alike to 
thera. They stubbornly reject the reasoning which seeks to convince 
them that observance of oaths by magistrates and legislators is a mere 
question of expediency and self-interest, varying with circumstances. 
Mr. Buchanan being a man of this class, I submit the question whether 
his prejudices against perjury (unreasonable as you may think thera) 
are not entitled to some little respect. 

Apart from the religious obligation of his oath, he loved the Constitu- 
tion of his country on its own account, as the best government the world 
ever saw. I do not expect you to sympathize with this feeling; your 
affections are otherwise engaged. But can you not make allowance for 
his attachment to that great compact which v/as framed by our forefathers 
to secure union, justice, peace, State independence, and individual liberty 
for ourselves and our posterity ? 

Another thing : All his predecessors governed their conduct by similar 
notions of fidelity to the Constitution. In peace and in war, in prospe- 
rity and dfsaster, through all changes, in spite of all threats and provoca- 
tions, they had kept their oaths, and assumed no ungranted power. It 
was the most natural thing in the world for Mr. Buchanan to follow 
the example of such men as Washington, Madison, and Jackson, rather 
than the precepts of those small but ferocious politicians who thought 
their own passions and interests a "higher law" than the law of the 
country. 

Again : All his advisers — not I alone, but all of them — expressed the 
clear and unhesitating opinion that his view of the law on the subject of 
coercing States was right. His legal duty being settled, not one among 
them ever breathed a suggestion that he ought to violate it. 

Besides : There was a question of natural justice, as well as legal pro- 
priety, involved in making war upon the States at that time. Nine-tenth*' 
of the Southern people were thoroughly devoted to the Union, and had 
committed no sin against it, even in thought. Would it have been well 
to bring the visitation of fire, sword, and famine upon whole communities 
of innocent persons ? You will probably answer this in the affirmative. 
You think that no opportunity to shed blood and plunder the property 
of men, women, and children who live beyond the Potomac ought ever to 
be lost. Mr. Buchanan might have seized that occasion to imitate 
John Brown on a large scale, and thus made himself an "heroic charac- 
ter" in your eyes. But you must be aware that he would have been re- 
garded by the mass of men as a moral monster ; and the admiration of 
yourself and your party in Massachusetts would have been but a poor 
compensation for the eternal weight of infamy with which the rest of the 
world would have loaded his memory. 

Further still : You know that the General-in-Chief of the army had 
reported five companies as the whole available force for operations in the 
South, and you never proposed to increase it. Yet you wanted war. 
Why ? You must have desired the Union cause to be disgraced and de- 



22 SENATOR WILSON AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 

feated, for nothinj;: else could hnve resulted from such a war as you now 
abuse Mr. Bucliauan for not making. You and your party in Congress 
were strictly non-committal. You did not recommend peace, nor offer 
your support to war. You would take neither the olive branch nor the 
sword. You refused to settle, and you made no preparation for a con- 
test. But you reveal now what was then the secret desire of your heart 
— that the administration, in defiance of law and without means, would 
declare war on its own responsibility. This would have been an expul- 
sion of the Southern States from the Union, for it would have placed all 
their people beyond the protection of Federal law ; they would necessa- 
rily rise in self-defence ; our little army of five hundred men would perish 
in a fortnight ; before the fourth of March the independence of the South 
would be a settled fact. 

Moreover, as you and your party friends in Congress did not call for a 
war, the President had a right (had he not?) to suppose that yo« ap- 
proved of his determination to keep the peace. Perhaps your approval 
of his conduct is not very powerful evidence of its justice or legality. 
But here is the point : How can you have the face to denounce a man as 
a criminal, after he is dead, for public acts which you consented to by 
yonr silence at the time they were done. 

But this is not all. You give your unqualified approbation to Mr. 
Lincoln's administration. I do not say you were true to it (for I believe 
the evidence is extant which proves that you were not); but you have 
lauded it as strong and faithful, Mr. Lincoln adopted precisely the same 
legal principles with regard to the coercion of the States that Mr. Bu- 
chanan had acted upon, and carried the policy of reconciliation infinitely 
beyond him. He avowed his intention not to make war or provoke it as 
plainly as his predecessor had ever done. Neither he nor his Attorney- 
General asserted their constitutional authority to commence aggressive 
and general hostilities for any cause then existing. He received com- 
missioners from the Southern States. He pledged himself not to retake 
the forts, arsenals, dockyards, custom-houses, etc., then in the hands of 
the secessionists. He promised to continue the mail service in the seceded 
States if they would permit him. He went further still, and pulilicly 
assured the Southern people that he would not irritate them by attempt- 
ing to execute the Federal laws at any place where it would be specially 
oflVnsive to them. All these were concessions to the South which Mr. Bu- 
chanan had steadily refused to make; and if he had made them, you would 
no doubt have pronounced them treasonable. But the Lincoln adminis- 
tration did not stop here. That Cabinet voted six to one in favor of 
S'lrrenderiag Fort Sumter — Mr. Blair being the only dissentient. The 
President, if he did not yield to the majority, must have wavered a con- 
siderable time ; the Secretary of State was so sure of him, that he caused 
the South Carolina authorities to be informed that the fort ivonfd be r/iven 
tip. You will not deny these facts, but you will continue, as heretofore, 
to say that the Buchanan administration weakly and wickedly favored se- 
cession, while that of Lincoln was firmly and faithfully opposed. The 
man who involves himself in such inconsistencies, whether from want of 
information, want of judgment, or want of veracity, is not qualified to 
write on an historical subject. 

I have given more time and space than I intended to this part of your 
paper. But I am addressing a man of peculiar character. To a person 
whose moral perceptions are healthy and natural, I could make my defence 



SENATOR WILSON AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 23 

in a breath. But being required to apologize for not violating a sworn 
duty, some circumlocution is necessary. 

Your mere railing accusations against Mr. Buchanan are hardly worth 
a reply. The place he is destined to occupy in history does not depend 
on anything you can say or forbear to say. You have no knowledge 
whatever of his character. Morally, intellectually, and politically, he 
was altogether too much of a man for you to comprehend. Tlie world 
will look for its information concerning him to the acts of his life, and to 
the testimony of men who knew him and had minds large enough to take 
his dimensions. I would not offer you the word of a Democrat ; but 
among those who were with him continually during the last weeks of his 
administration are some who have since supported Radical measures with 
a zeal warm enough to make them good witnesses. Let General Dix 
speak his knowledge and say whether he saw anything of the treason, the 
weakness, or the wickedness which you impute so boldly and so reck- 
lessly. Mr. King, the Postmaster-General, cannot be ignorant of any im- 
portant fact which bears on this question. Mr. Holt has already, on 
several occasions, delivered his testimony. It is a fervent tribute to the 
" wise statesmanship and unsullied patriotism" of Mr. Buchanan, as well 
as to " the firm and generous support" which he constantly gave to men 
and measures approved by his conscience. The proof of his great 
ability and his eminent public services are found on every page of his 
country's history from 1820 to 1861. During all that long period he 
steadily, faithfully, and powerfully sustained the principles of free con- 
stitutional government. This nation never had a truer friend, nor its laws 
a defender who would more cheerfully have given his life to save them 
from violation. No man was ever slandered so brutally. His life's life 
was literally lied away. In the last months of his administration he de- 
voted all the energies of his mind and body to the great duty of saving 
the Union, if possible, from dissolution and civil war. He knew all the 
dangers to which it was exposed, and it would, therefore, be vain to say 
that he was not alarmed for his country; but he showed no sign of un- 
manly fear on his own account. He met all his vast responsibilities as 
fairly as any Chief Magistrate we ever had. In no case did he shrink 
from or attempt to evade them. The accusation of timidity and indeci- 
sion is most preposterous. His faults were all of another kind ; his re- 
solutions once formed were generally immovable to a degree that bordered 
on obstinacy. On every matter of great importance he deliberated cau- 
'tiously, and sometimes tried the patience of his friends by refusing to act 
until he had made up an opinion which he could live and die by. These 
characteristics explain the fact that his whole political life, from the time 
he entered Congress until he retired from the Presidency — all his acts, 
speeches, and papers — have a consistency which belongs to those of no 
other American statesman. He never found it necessary to cross his own 
path or go back upon his pledges. His judgment was of course not in- 
fallible ; and in 1861 he announced a determination with reference to the 
South Carolina commissioners which I and others thought erroneous but 
unchangeable. Most unexpectedly, and altogether contrary to his usual 
habit of steadfast self-reliance, he consented to reconsider and materially 
alter his decision. This change, and all the circumstances which brought 
it about, were alike honorable to his understanding and his heart. I ad- 
mit that you were not the first inventor of these slanders ; but you ought 
to know that it does not become a man in your station to take up an evil 



24 SENATOR WILSON ANrf EDWIN M. STANTON. 

report and repeat it, like a parrot, without stopping to consider whether 
it has any foundation or not. 

You are not content with traducing Mi*. Buchanan himself; you take 
up the heads of departments who served under him, and deal out your 
dennnciations upon nearly all in succession. 

The Secretary of the Treasury, you say, was deranpfinp: the finances 
and sinking; the national credit. Upon whom does this fall ? Was it 
Cobb, or Thomas, or Dix that committed that crime ? The charge is 
equally untrue whether made against one or another. You never saw a 
scintilla of evidence to justify it. 

You tell your readers that the Secretary of War scattered the or/wyand 
sent guns and munitions to the secessionists. Whatever Mr. Floyd may 
have done in his lifetime, it is well established that he never did this. 
Numerous charges have been, and others might be, made against that 
officer with some show of truth. It is curious that your appetite for 
scandal could be satisfied only by selecting one which is well known to be 
unfounded. 

You inform the country that the Secretary of the Navy rendered that 
arm. powerless. This is not a new charge. It has been made several 
times before, and solemnly investigated more than once. Not only has it 
never been supported, but it has uniformly been met by such evidence of 
Mr. Toucey's perfect integrity that every respectable man among his po- 
litical enemies acquits him without hesitation. In your present reitera- 
tion of it, you are simply bearing false witness against your neighbor, in 
flat violation of the ninth commandment. 

But perhaps the most extraordinary of all your averments is, that the 
Secretary of the Interior permitted the robbery of trust funds. You did 
not mean it to be understood that a robbery occurred which he knew 
nothing about, and of which he was, therefore, as innocent as any other 
man. You intended to make the impression that he wilfully gave his 
permission to the criminal asportation of the funds in question, made 
himself an accessory to the felony before the fact, and was as guilty as if 
he had done it with his own hands. You could not possibly have believed 
tills, unless you perversely closed your eyes against the light of plain 
truth. All tile circumstances of the transaction to which you refer are 
as well understood as anything in the history of the country. A commit- 
tee of Congress, consisting of meuibers opposed to the Secretary, ex- 
amined the evidence when it was fresh, and reported upon it. The cor-, 
rectness of their judgment has never been impugned. In the face of 
these recorded and well-known facts, you deliberately sit down and write 
out, or get somebody to write and publish to the world on your au- 
thority, the accusation that Mr. Thompson has committed an offence 
which should make him infamous forever. The force of mendacity can 
go no further. I admit that you are a loyal man, in the modern sense of 
tlie word, and a Senator in Congress from a most loyal State ; and it is 
equally true that Mr. Thompson was a rebel ; that he was for years an 
exile from his home and country, pursued wherever he went by an Exe- 
cutive proclamation which put a price on his head. This gives you an 
immense advantage over him. But the fact is still true that no depart- 
ment of this government was ever managed more ably or more faithfully 
than the Interior while he was at the head of it. You may have all the 
benefit of loyalty, and you may weigh him down with the huge burden of 
rebellion ; nevertheless, his mental ability, good sense, and common 



SENATOR WILSOX AXD EDWIN M. STANTON. 25 

honesty pnt him so immeasurably far above yon, that you will never ia 
this life be able to get a horizontal view of his character. 

I come now to the more important part of your article, which directly 
concerns Mr. Stanton. Your attacks upon Buchanan, Toiicey, and 
Tiiompson might be safely passed in silence, but the character of Stanton 
must utterly perish if it be not defended against your praise. 

You give us the first information we ever had that Mr. Stanton, though 
acting with the Democratic party, was an abolitionist at heart almost 
from his earliest youth. For this fact you vouch his declaration to Judge 
Chase more tiian thirty years ago, at Columbus, Ohio ; and you attempt to 
corroborate it by citing his association at Washington with Dr. Bailey and 
other abolitionists. If you tell the truth, he was the most marvellous im- 
postor that ever lived or died. Among us, his political principles were 
thought to be as well known as his name and occupation. He never 
allowed his fidelity to be doubted for one moment. It was perfectly un- 
derstood that he had no affinities whatever with men of your school in 
morals or politics. His condemnation of the abolitionists was unsparing 
for their hypocrisy, their corruption, their enmity to the Constitution, and 
their lawless disregard for the rights of States and individuals. Thus he 
won the confidence of Democrats. On the faith of such professions we 
promoted him in his business, and gave him office, honor, and fortune. 
But, according to your account, he was all the while waiting and hoping 
for the time to come when he could betray the Constitution and its friends 
into the cruel clutches of their enemies. For this cold-blooded and de- 
liberate treachery you bespeak the admiration of the American people. 
You might as well propose to canonize Judas Iscariot. 

I maintain, on the other hand, that he was what he seemed to be, a 
sound and sincere friend, political and personal, of the men who showered 
their favors on his head. He had at least the average amount of attach- 
ment for "the Constitution of the United States, and for the peace, good 
order, and happiness of the same." As a necessary consequence, he 
dreaded the dishonest and destructive rule which he foresaw that you 
would be sure to establish as soon as you could. His democracy did 
not cease when the war opened. In the summer of 1861, when your 
anti-constitutional principles began to be practically carried out by the 
kidnapping of innocent citizens, by the suppression of free speech, and 
by the enslavement of the press, he imprecated the vengeance of Clod and 
the law upon the guilty authors of those crimes with as much energy as 
any Democrat in the nation. Only a short time before his appointment 
as Secretary of War his love of liberty and legal justice impelled him to 
curse Mr. Lincoln himself with bitter curses. He called him by con- 
temptuous names, and with simian, if not with " swinish phrase soiled 
his addition." I admit that he changed these sentiments afterwards, but 
I deny that he had adopted your way of thinking while he pretended to 
concur in ours. His conversion was a real one, produced by what he re- 
garded as "good and sufficient reasons him thereunto moving," and it 
was accompanied, or immediately followed, by a corresponding change of 
his party attitude. He was not what you make him out, a mere fawning 
hypocrite. 

The issue is plainly made. The friends of Mr. Stanton will not per- 
mit you to gibbet him in the face of the world, after death has disarmed 
him of the power of self-defence. Yon must prove the injurious allega- 
tions you make, or else accept the just consequences. If the Chief Jus- 



26 SENATOR WILSOX AXD EDWIN M. STANTON. 

tice will say that he knows Mr. Stanton to have been " in entire ap^ree- 
luent" with the abolition party thirty years ag;o, his testimony may silence 
denial. But you mnst not trifle with us ; we will hold yon to strict proof; 
hearsay evidence will not be received ; least of all will the fact be ad- 
mitted upon the second-hand statement of a person who thinks, as you 
manifestly do think, that deception, fraud, and false pretences are an honor 
to the man who practised them. 

Next in chronological order is your assertion that Mr. Stanton, while 
yet a private citizen, advised Mr. Buchanan that it was the duty and the 
right of the Federal Government to coerce seceding States ; that is to 
say, make war against all the inhal>itants of every State in which an or- 
dinance of secession had been or should be passed. Now, mark how 
]ilain a tale will put you down. Mr. Stanton never was consulted on 
that snl)ject by the President until after he was Attorney-General ; and 
he never at any time gave such advice as you put into his mouth. He 
never entertained any opinion of that kind, for he was a lawyer of large 
capacity and could not believe an absurdity. He had too much regard 
for his professional character to maintain a legal proposition which he 
knew to be false. He certainly would not have so debased himself in the 
eyes of the administration with whom he was particularly desirous, at 
that time, to stand well. 

On this point I wish to be very distinct. I aver that Mr. Stanton 
thoroughly, cordially, and constantly approved of and concurred in the 
constitutional doctrines which you denounce as timid and treasonable. 
He endorsed the opinion of his predecessor with extravagant and unde- 
served laudation; he gave his adhesion to the annual message in many 
ways; and the special message of 8th January, 1861, which expressed 
the same principles with added emphasis, was carefully read over to him 
before it was sent to Congress, and it received his unqualified assent. 
The existing'evidence of this can be easily adduced ; it is direct as well 
as circumstantial, oral as well as documentary, and some of it is in the 
handwriting of Mr. Stanton himself. If you are willing to put the 
question into a proper form for judicial investigation, I will aid you in 
doing so, and give you an opportunity to make out your case before an 
impartial tribunal. 

If your statement be true that Mr. Stanton disbelieved in the princi- 
ples to which the administration was unchangeably pledged, how did he 
come to take office under it ? Was he so anxious for public employment 
that he consented to give up his own convictions and assist in carrying 
out measures which his judgment condemned as the offspring of timidity 
and treason ? Or, did he accept the confidence of the President and the 
Cabinet with a predetermined intent to betray it ? Either way you make 
him guilty of unspeakable baseness. 

But conceding that he would accept, why did the President, with the 
consent of his advisers, give the appointment to a man whom they knew 
to be hostile to them upon points so vital not only to the public interests 
but their own characters ? That at such a time they would invite an un- 
disguised enemy into their counsels, is a tale as wildly improbable as any 
ever swallowed by the credulity of the Salem witch-finders. Your own 
cotisciousness of this com[)els you to exi>lain by attributing it to a spe- 
cial intervention of Divine Providence. Your impious theory is that 
Almighty God procured this appointment miraculously, in order that you, 
the enemies of the American Constitution, might have a spy in the camp 



SENATOR WILSON" AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 27 

of its friends. This will not serve your turn. Reason never refers a 
human event to supernatural af?ency, unless it be impossible to account 
for it in any other way. The mystery of this case is easily cleared up by 
the hypothesis that you have misrepresented it from bej?inning to end ; 
which is no miracle at all, but quite in the natural order of things. 

The truth is, Mr. Stanton was in perfect accord with the administra- 
tion, before and after he became a part of it, on every question of funda- 
mental principle. He had unlimited confidence in the men with whom 
he was acting, and they confided in him. For his chief and some of his 
colleagues he professed an attachment literally boundless ; for all of them 
who stayed during the term, and for Thompson, who did not stay, he 
was warm in his friendship. You would now have us believe that these 
were merely the arts of an accomplished impostor ; that while he was, in 
appearance, zealously co-operating with us, he was reporting to you that 
" he saw treason in every part of the government ;" and that he was se- 
cretly using all the means in his power to stir up the vilest passions 
against us. 

Some overt acts of the treachery you ascribe to him are curious ; for in- 
stance, the Sumner story, which you tell with singular brevity and cool- 
ness. Mr. Sumner called on him at his office, for what purpose you do 
not disclose. Mr. Stanton did not receive his visitor either with the 
politeness of a gentleman or the courtesy due to a Senator, much less 
with the cordiality of a friend ; but hustled him out of the building as if 
ashamed to be seen with him in daylight. He told him expressly that he 
did not dare to converse with him ihere, but would see him at one o'clock 
that night. The hour came, and then, when the city was wrapped in 
sleep, he skulked away to the meeting place, where, under the cover of dark- 
ness, he whispered the tales which he did not dare to utter in the hearing of 
the parties they were intended to ruin. And those parties were his friends 
and benefactors! Into what unfathomed gulfs of moral degradation must the 
man have fallen who would be guilty of this 1 But remember, this is another 
second-hand story, and you are not a competent witness. We will trouble 
you to call Mr. Sumner, if you please. Let him testify what treason 
Stanton disclosed, and e.xplain, if he can, how this midnight and secret 
information against men whom he was afraid to confront is consistent with 
Mr. Stanton's character as a courageous, outspoken, and honest man. 

He said nothing whatever to us about the treason which he saw in 
every part of the government. He made no report of his discoveries to 
the President. He maintained unbroken his fraternal relations with his 
colleagues. By your own account, he admitted to Mr. Sumner that he 
did not dare to speak of such a thing even in his own office, lest it might 
reach the ears of his associates in the administration. Among the mem- 
bers of Congress whom you name as the recipients of his secret commu- 
nications, not one man of moderate views is included ; much less did he 
speak to any friend of the parties accused. He cautiously selected their 
bitterest enemies, and poured his venom into hearts already festering with 
spite. The House raised a committee " to investigate treasonable machi- 
nations and conspiracies," upon which there were members of both parties. 
Stanton did not go before it and tell his story ; nor did he mention the 
subject to Cochrane, Reynolds, or Branch ; Ijut he " made an arrange- 
ment by which Messrs. Howard and Dawes were informed" of whatever 
they wanted to know. It appears, too, that a committee of vigilance was 
organized by the more active Republican members of Congress ; in other 



28 SENATOR WILSON AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 

words, the extreme partisans of both Houses got up a secret body of their 
own, not to perform any legal duty pertaining to their offices, not to de- 
vise public measures for averting the ruin which threatened the country, 
but to prowl about in the dark for something to gratify personal malice 
or make a little capital for their party. You were a member of that com- 
mittee, as it was fit you should be, and Mr. Stanton gave you " warnings 
and suggestions" how to proceed. This is what you call "rising in that 
crisis above the claims of partisanship." At night he assisted you to rake 
the sewers in search of materials to bespatter his colleagues, and every 
morning he appeared before them to " renew the assurances of his distin- 
guished consideration." It was thus that, in your estimation, "he con- 
secrated himself to the lofty duties of an exalted patriotism." 

What cargoes of defamatory falsehood he must have consigned to your 
keeping ! You do not break the foul bulk, but you have given us some 
samples which deserve examination. He denounced Mr. Toucey as false 
to his country, inspired Dawes's resolution against him, and expressed the 
belief that he ought to be arrested. Let us look at this a moment. 

To Mr. Toucey's face Mr. Stanton breathed no syllable of censure upon 
his official conduct as head of the Navy Department. To the President 
or Cabinet he expressed no doubt of his wisdom, much less of his honesty. 
He met him every day with a face of smiling friendship. Toucey certainly 
had not the remotest idea that Stanton was defaming him behind his back, 
or conspiring with abolitionists to destroy his reputation. He would as 
soon have suspected him of an intent to poison his food or stab him ia 
his sleep. Can it be possible that Stanton was the author of the Dawes 
resolution ? 

That resolution is found in the " Congressional Globe," Second Session, 
Thirty-sixth Congress, 1860-61, part second, pp. 1423-24. The pro- 
ceeding was begun, no doubt, in the hope of finding something on which 
the charge could be founded of scattering the navy to prevent it being 
used against the South. But that failed miserably; and the committee 
reported nothing worse than " a grave error" of the Secretary in accept- 
ing without delay or inquiry the resignation of certain naval officers. 
Even this had no foundation in law or fact. Its truth was denied and the 
evidence called for; none was produced. The right to explain and de- 
fend was demanded, but the gag of the previous question was applied be- 
fore a word could be said. The accusers knew very well that it would 
not bear the slightest investigation. Mr. Sickles said truly (amid cries 
of "Order") that censure without evidence disgraces only those who pro- 
nounce it. Mr. Toucey's reputation was never injuriously affected by it 
in the estimation of any fair-minded man. But you fish it up from the 
oblivion to which it has been consigned, and try to give it decency and 
dignity by saying that Stanton inspired it. You do not appear to per- 
ceive the hideous depth to which your assertion, if true, would drag him 
down. It is not true; the whole business bears the impress of a different 
mijid. 

Mr. Stanton also suggested that his colleague and friend Toucey ought 
to he arrested. This could not have been a proposition to take him into 
legal custody on a criminal charge regularly made. That would have 
been utterly impossible and absurd. The Dawes committee itself could 
find nothing against him butan error of judgmeut. The suggestion must 
hiive been to kidnap him, without an accusation or proof of probable 
cause, and consign him to some dungeon without trial or hope of other 



SENATOR WILSON AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 29 

relief. If Stanton attempted to get this done, he was guilty of snch per- 
fidy as would have shocked the basest pander in the court of Louis XV. 
But to confute your libel upon Toucey and Stanton both, it is only neces- 
sary to recollect the fact that kidnapping of American citizens was at that 
time wholly unknown and absolutely impossible. We were living under 
a Democratic administration, the country was free, and law was supreme. 
Tyranny had not yet sunk its bloody fangs into the vitals of the national 
liberty. The systematic perjury which afterward made the Constitution 
a dead letter was not then established as a rule of political morality. 

Your whole account of the " Cabinet scene" at which Floyd, " raging 
and storming, arraigned the President and Cabinet," and "the President 
trembled and grew pale," and " Stanton met the baffled traitor and his 
fellow conspirators with a storm of fierce and fiery denunciation," is a 
]iure and perfectly baseless fabrication. It is absurd to boot. What was 
Floyd's arraignment of the President and the Cabinet for ? You say for 
violating their pledges to the secessionists ; and the charge against the 
President and Cabinet of violating their pledges was predicated solely 
on the fact that Colonel Anderson had removed from Fort Moultrie to 
Fort Sumter ; and Floyd was disappointed in Colonel Anderson, whom he 
" had expected," as a Southern man, to " carry out his purposes in the 
interest of treason." This is mere drivelling at best, and it is completely 
exploded by the record, which shows that Colonel Anderson's transfer of 
his force from Fort Moultrie to Port Sumter was in literal obedience to 
orders from the President, which Floyd himself had drawn up, signed, and 
transmitted. Moreover, Floyd at that time was not in a condition to ar- 
raigu anybody. He himself had just before that been not only arraigned 
but condemned, and the President had notified him that he would be re- 
moved if he did not resign. Was it this broken-down and powerless man 
who made the President tremble and grow pale by complaining that a sub- 
ordinate had unexpectedly obeyed his own orders ? You are not silly 
enough to say so. Was it Stanton's " storm of fierce and fiery denun- 
ciation" ? Stanton was no stormer in the presence of such men as he 
then had to deal with. His language was habitually deferential, his whole 
bearing decent, and his behavior at the council board was entirely free from 
the insolence yoh impute to it. Your tales do not hang together. No 
one can give credence to your report of bold and stormy denunciation 
by Stanton in the presence of his chief and his colleagues, and at the 
same time believe what you say of him at another place, where you de- 
scribe him as a dastard, skulking about in the dead of night to find a 
place of concealment remote enough to make him safe, and confessing 
that he did not dare to breathe his accusation in the face of day. The 
crawling sycophant — the stealthy spy — who bargained so carefully for 
darkness and secrecy when he made his reports, must have been wholly 
unfitted to play the part of Jupiter Tonans in a square and open con- 
flict. It is not possible that the fearless Stanton of your " Cabinet scene" 
could be the same Stanton who, at one o'clock in the night, was " squat 
like a toad" at the ear of Sumner, 

Essaying by his devilish arts to reach 
The organs of his fancy. 

I take it upon me to deny most emphatically that Mr. Stanton ever 
"wrote a full and detailed account of that Cabinet scene" by which you 
can have the least hope of being corroborated. I cannot prove a nega- 



30 SENATOR WILSON AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 

tive ; but I can show that yonr assertion is incredible. That he should 
have coolly indited a letter, even though he never sent it, filled with foolish 
brags of his own prowess, which half a dozen men then living could prove 
to be false, was not consistent either with his prudence, veracity, or taste. 
Besides, he often spoke with me about the events of that period, and 
never in my hearing did he manifest the slightest disposition to misunder- 
stand or misrepresent them. On the contrary, when a statement resem- 
bling yours about a Cabinet scene was published in a London paper, I 
suggested that he ought to contradict it ; and he replied, explaining how 
and by whom it had been fabricated, but said it was not worth a contra- 
diction, for every man of common intelligence would know it to be a 
mere tissue of lies. You cannot destroy Stanton's character for sense and 
decency by citing his own authority against himself. Nor can you find 
any other proof to sustain the story. It is the weak invention of some 
scurvy politician, who sought to win the patronage of one administration 
by maligning another. 

Some busy and insinuating rogue, 

Some cogging, cozeiiiug slave, to get some office, 

Hath devised this slander. 

Your history of his appointment to the War Department is as erro- 
neous as that which you have given of his conduct while Attorney- 
General. You say that he cordially indorsed Mr. Cameron's recommen- 
dation to arm the negroes against the white people of the South ; that 
Mr. Lincoln disapproved this and required it to be suppressed ; that 
afterward, when Cameron "felt the pressure of the multiplied labor," he 
proposed to resign, but coupled his offer with a condition tliat " some 
one should be appointed not unfriendly to his policy," namely, the policy of 
arming negroes, to which Mr. Lincoln was himself opposed; that Cameron 
did resign upon these terms, and used the privilege conceded to him by 
suggesting the name of Stanton. Everybody who knows Simon Came- 
ron will understand the object of dragging this thing by the head and 
shoulders into your article. In fact and in truth, there was no kind of 
connection between these two men — no sympathy nor mutual respect. 
Cameron did not resign ; he was removed for good cayse. He had no 
lot nor part in naming his successor. The removal and appointment 
were both made before Mr. Cameron knew of either, and they were made 
because the President saw the necessity of having a man at the head of 
that department who was competent and incorruptible. The correspon- 
dence afterward published under the names of Messrs. Lincoln and 
Cameron was fictitious, and got up at the instance of the latter to give 
the affair a false appearance. It is morally impossible that Stanton could 
have given his approval to Cameron's abortive report on the negroes ; 
for he was at that time a while man every inch of him, proud of the great 
race he sprang from, and full of faith in its capacity to fight its own battles 
and govern itself. Nothing would have humiliated him more than to see 
the American ])eople relinquish their rightful place in the front rank of 
the world, surrender their inheritance of free government, and sneak back 
behind the African for protection in war or in peace. Long after he 
was Secretary of War he told Mr. Mallory, of Kentucky, that he had 
not only refused to sanction the enlistment of a negro regiment, but had 
punished an officer for merely proposing it. I understand that you have 
promised to contradict yourself on this subject, and I hope you will keep 
your word. 



SENATOR WILSON AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 31 

Your account of his raid upon the Treasury, in company with Gover- 
nor Morton, would look very strange in a panegyric made by anybody 
else but you. I will restate the facts you have given, but without the 
drapery by which you conceal from yourself the view of them which must 
unavoidably be taken by all men who believe in the obligation of any law, 
human or divine. In the winter of 1863, the Legislature of Indiana was 
dissolved before the appropriations had been made to carry on the State 
government or aid in putting troops in the field. Of course. Congress 
did not, and could not, make appropriations for carrying on' the State 
government or putting troops in the field, which the State was bound 
to raise at her own expense. But the Governor determined to get what 
money he wanted without authority of law, and he looked to Washington 
for assistance. President Lincoln declined to aid him, because no money 
could be taken from the Treasury without appropriation. Mr. Stanton, 
being applied to, saw the critical condition of the Governor, and, without 
scruple, joined him in his financial enterprise. He drew a warrant for a 
quarter of a million of dollars, and gave it to the Governor to spend as 
he pleased, not only without being authorized by any appropriation for 
that purpose, but iu defiance of express law appropriating the same money 
to another and a totally different object. If this be true, the guilt of the 
parties can hardly be overcharged by any words which the English lan- 
guage will supply. It was getting money out of the public treasury, not 
only unlawfully, but by a process as dishonest as larceny. It involved 
the making of a fraudulent warrant, of which the moral turpitude was no 
less than that committed by a private individual when he fabricates and 
utters a false paper. It was a gross and palpable violation of the oaths 
which the Governor and Secretary had both taken. It was, by the statute 
of 1846, a felonious embezzlement of the money thus obtained, punishable 
by fine and ten years' imprisonment in the penitentiary. The parties, 
according to your version, were both conscious of the high crime they 
were perpetrating, for you make one say to the other, " If the cause fails, 
you and I will be co.vered with prosecutions, and probably imprisoned 
or driven from the country," You do not diminish or mitigate the of- 
fence one whit by saying that the money was afterward accounted for. 
A felony cannot be compounded or condoned by a simple restitution of 
the spoils ; and the law I have cited was made expressly to prevent offi- 
cers charged with the safe-keeping, transfer, or disbursement of public 
money from using it to accommodate friends in a "critical condition." 
But what will be said of your trustworthiness as a contributor to history 
when the public comes to learn that this whole story is bogus? I pro- 
nounce it untrue in the aggregate and in the detail— in the sum total and 
in every item. The truth is this: In 1863 the Democratic majority of 
the Indiana Legislature were ready and willing to pass their proper and 
usual appropriation bills, but were prevented by the Republican minority 
who •' bolted" and left the house without a quorum until the constitu- 
tional limit of their session expired. The Governor refused to reconvene 
them, and thus, by his own fault and that of his friends, he was without 
the ways and means to pay the current expenses of the State. He was 
wrong, but his error was that of a violent partisan, not the crime of a 
corrupt magistrate. He did not come to Washington with any intention 
to relieve his necessities by plundering the Federal Treasury. He made 
no proposition either to Mr. Lincoln or Mr. Stanton, that they or either 
of them should become his accomplices in any such infamous crime. His 



32 SENATOR WILSON AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 

purpose was to demand payment of a debt due, and acknowledged to be 
due, from the United States to the State of Indiana. The money had 
been appropriated by Congress to })iiy it, and it vms paid according to 
law! 1 know not how Mr. Morton may like to see himself held up as a 
felon confessing his guilt, but I can say with some confidence, that if Mr, 
Stanton were alive he would call you to a very severe reckoning. 

What must amaze the readers of your article more than anything else 
is the perfect sincerity of the belief which you express, directly or indi- 
rectly, in every line of it, that the base misconduct you attribute to Mr. 
Stanton is eminently praiseworthy. You seem to be wholly unconscious 
of defaming the man you meant to eulogize. But, if your facts be ac- 
cepted, the honor and honesty of them will not be measured by your 
standards. It may be true that public opinion has of late been sadly 
del)auched ; but the American people have not permanently changed 
their code of morality. Good faith between man and man, personal in- 
tegrity, social fidelity, observance of oaths, and obedience to the laws 
which hold society together, have heretofore been numbered among the 
virtues, and they will be again. The government of God has not been 
reconstructed. Fraud or force may abolish the Constitution, but the 
Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule are beyond your reach ; some 
persons have faith enough to believe that even " the gates of hell shall 
not ])revail against them." 

The odious character you have given Mr. Stanton is not merely unjust 
in itself, but, if uncontradicted, it must lead to other misconceptions of 
him. Besides the offences against law, justice, humanity, and truth which 
you have enumerated and assigned to him for his glorification, he has 
been charged with others which, if established, must expose him to uni- 
versal execration. For instance, it is asserted that, in the winter of 1861, 
when he was a member of the Cabinet, he gave to Governor Brown, of 
Mississippi, the most emphatic assurance of his conviction that secession 
was right, and urged him to "go on" with it; that in 18G2, while he was 
writing the most affectionate letters to General McClellan, he not only 
maligned him at Washington, but maliciously plotted his defeat and the 
destruction of his army before Richmond ; that he refused in 1804 to re- 
ceive the Andersonville ])risoners when offered freely without ransom, 
exchange, or other equivalent, though he knew if left there they must 
perish miserably for want of the medicine and food which their captors 
had not the means to give them. These accusations, you are aware, 
have often been made with horrible aggravations which I need not repeat. 
His friends have denied and discredited them, mainly on the ground that 
his character was wholly above such im|)utations. But you have done 
your full best to make this defence wortliless. If he wore the cloak of 
constitutional democracy with us, and put on the livery of abolitionism 
with you, why should he not assume the garb of a secessionist with men of 
the South ? If he tried to get his friend Toucey kidnapped, what moral 
principle could hinder him from contriving the ruin of his friend McClel- 
lan ? If he craftily exerted himself at your end of the avenue to bring 
on a bloody civil war, wldch according to his own declarations at our end 
was unlawful and causeless, what crime against human life was he not ca- 
palile of committing? If he wilfully left our i>risoners to certain star- 
vation, and then managed falsely to throw the odium of their death upon 
tlie political enemies of the party in power, and thus contributed very 
largely to the enslavement of the Southern Slates, was not that an act of 



SENATOR WILSON AND EDWIN M. STANTON. ' 33 

"intense and abounding patriotism," as well worthy of your praise as 
some others for which you have bestowed it? Those who give credit to 
you will find it perfectly logical to believe the worst that has ever been 
said of him. 

Sejanus has passed for about the worst specimen of ministerial depra- 
vity whom we have any account of; but nothing is recorded of him 
which might not be believed of Stanton, if you are regarded as credible 
authority ; for you have made it a labor of love to paint him as a master 
in the loathsome arts of treachery, dissimulation, and falsehood — unfaith- 
ful alike to private friendship and to public duty. With the talents he 
possessed and the principles you ascribe to him, he might have made an 
invaluable Grand Vizier to a Turkish Sultan — provided the Sultan were 
in the prime of life and had no powerful brother near the throne ; but in 
a free country such a character canuot be thought of without disgust and 
abhorrence. 

In your eyes the "intense and abounding patriotism" of Stanton is 
sufficient to atone not only for all the faults he had, but for all the offences 
against law and morals which the utmost fertility of your imagination 
can lay to his charge ; and patriotism in your vocabulary means devotion 
to the interests of that political sect which has you for one of its priests. 
This will not suffice. You cannot safely blacken a man with one hand 
and neutralize the effect by daubing on the whitewash of patriotism with 
the other. Patriotism, in its true sense, does indeed dignify and adorn 
human nature. It is an exhalted and comprehensive species of charity, 
which hides a multitude of sins. The patriotism of Washington, which 
laid broad and deep the foundation of free institutions and set the noble 
example of implicit obedience to the laws ; the patriotism of John Hamp- 
den, who voluntarily devoted his fortune and his life to the maintenance 
of legal justice ; the patriotism of Cato, who resisted the destructive 
madness of his countrymen and greatly fell with a falling State; the pa- 
triotism of Daniel O'Connell, who spent his time and talents in constant 
efforts to relieve his people from the galling yoke of clerical oppression ; 
the patriotism of the elder Pitt, who, speaking in the cause of universal 
liberty, loudly rejoiced that America had resisted the exactions of a ty- 
rannical Parliament — to such patriotism some errors may be pardoned. 
When men like these are found to have committed a fault, it is well that 
history should deal with it tenderly, 

And, sad as angels for the good man's sin, 
Weep to record and blush to give it in. 

But the loyalty that tramples on law — the fidelity which stabs the lib- 
erties it ought to protect — the public zeal which expends itself in grati- 
fying the vindicitive or mercenary passions of one party by the unjust 
oppression of another — this kind of patriotism has less claim to the ad- 
miration of the world. It is a cheap thing, readily supplied to any fac- 
tion unprincipled enough to pay for it. It is entirely too " intense and 
abounding;" and its intensity and abundance are always greatest in the 
worst times. It does not sanctify evil deeds. If it be not a sin in itself, 
it certainly deserves to be ranked among what Dr. Johnson calls "the 
rascally virtues." 

Mr. Stanton's reputation is just now in a critical condition. He took 
no care of it while he lived, and- he died, like Bacon, leaving a vulnera- 
ble name "to men's charitable speeches." He needs a more discriminat- 
3 



34 JEREMIAH S. BLACK AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 

ing eulogist than you, and a far better defence than I am able to make. 
I have not attempted to portray his good qualities; I intended only to 
protest against your shameless parade of vices to which he was not 
addicted, and crimes which he never committed ; and this I have done, 
not only because it is just to him but necessary for the vindication of 
others. 



JEREMIAH S. BLACK AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 

BY HON. HEXRY AVILSON. 

A few days after the death of Mr. Stanton, at the request of the pub- 
lishers of " The Atlantic," I prepared an article on some of the character- 
istics of the great Secretary as they revealed themselves to me in the 
varying phases of the Rebellion. It was not history or biography, nor 
was it intended to be. It spoke of his tireless industry, indomitable 
courage, promptness of decision, readiness to assume responsibilities, 
inteii.se patriotism, and a self-sacrificing devotion to his imperilled country. 
In illustration of these characteristics, I cited a few of the many facts 
that had come to my knowledge, either by personal observation or the 
authentic testimony of others. 

Mr. Jeremiah S. Black does not like my portraiture of Mr. Stanton, 
or my statement of facts. He appears in the June number of "The 
Galaxy" in a communication addressed to myself, in which my statements 
are questioned and my conclusions are denied. The article is charac- 
teristic of the man ; and I am not surprised at the manner or the matter 
of it. Mr. Black seems to belong to a class of public men who are 
lingering behind their age, soured, disappointed, and vindictive. He 
seems Ki)ecialiy conscious — and his consciousness is apparently strength- 
ening with time — that there are few lawyers, fewer statesmen, and no 
patriots, who this day approve the advice he gave the President, on the 
20th of November, 1860, in the only act which will carry his name to 
posterity. Contemporaneous history has already pronounced that "his 
argument gave much aid and comfort to the conspirators," that he 
"virtually counselled the President to suffer this glorious concrete Re- 
public to become disintegrated by the Gres of faction or the blows of 
actual rebellion, rather than use the force legitimately at his service for 
preservation of its integrity." Nor is posterity likely to reverse this 
judgment. Loyal men, whose words and acts are instinct with patriotism, 
may perhaps afford to pardon the utterance of one who is passing into 
history under the irreversible condemnation already pronounced of a 
people saved in spite of his imbecile counsels and perilous theories. 

As vulgar as vituperative, as ill-mannered as ill-tempered, with an ef- 
frontery as strange and fatuous as it was brazen, his article falsifies 
history and defames the dead, though the writer must have known that 
both the living witnesses and the documentary evidence are at hand to 
rectify the one and vindicate the other. It is not now my purpose to 
reply to his laudation of President Buchanan ; or to his denial that 
Howell Cobb, while Secretary of the Treasury, by his treasonable utter- 
ances at Washington and among the money-lenders of Wall Street, 



JEREMIAH S. BLACK AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 35 

deranjred the finances and sunk the national credit; or to his denial that 
John B. Floyd while Secretary of War, sent oauskets where they could 
be "clutched" by the rising conspirators ; or to his apology for Toucey ; 
or to his canonization of Jacob Thompson, the smallest and basest of the 
Cabinet conspirators. I am mindful that Mr. Black was a mere lawyer 
when he entered the Cabinet, that he had little association or acquaint- 
ance with statesmen. Of course his associates in the Cabinet, who had 
some experience in public affairs, although they have left little evidence 
in the records of their country of learning, eloquence, or statesmanship, 
towered up before his inexperienced eyes. No wonder that to this poli- 
tical neophyte Jacob Thompson seemed a great and illustrious statesman, 
" so immeasurably far above" the range of ordinary mortals, that they 
"will never in this life be able to get a horizontal view of his character." 
My object now is to defend Mr. Stanton from his treacherous friendship 
and vindicate the truthfulness of my statements, so recklessly assailed, by 
testimonies which cannot be gainsaid, and which are beyond the reach of 
cavil and successful contradiction. 

In portraying the signal services rendered his country by Mr. Stanton, 
I referred to the fact that on entering Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet he put 
himself in communication with leading Republicans in Congress; that so 
anxious was he for the safety of the Republic, he visited by appointment 
Mr. Sumner at his lodgings after midnight, to impress upon him the 
danger which menaced the nation. These facts were stated to illustrate 
Mr. Stanton's exalted patriotism, which prompted him to rise above the 
claims and clamors of mere partisanship, and to invoke the aid of loyal 
men beyond the lines of his own party and outside of the administration 
of which he was a member, to serve his imperilled country menaced by a 
foul and wicked revolt. Such patriotism, however, Mr. Jeremiah S. 
Black does not comprehend. Such action he cannot applaud. He sees 
in it nothing but " overt acts of treachery." He doubts, questions, denies, 
and exclaims with holy horror : "Into what unfathomed gulfs of moral 
degradation must the man have fallen who could have been guilty of 
this !" 

Notwithstanding these doubts, denials, and exclamations, Mr. Stanton, 
nevertheless, did put himself in communication, while in Mr. Buchanan's 
Cabinet, with leading Republicans. Of this fact there is no lack of com- 
petent testimony. Mr. Seward — certainly not a biased witness — under 
date of June 6th writes : — 

" You recall the memories of 1860 and 1861 ; our anxieties for the 4th 
of March then to come ; the conferences we had, and the efforts we made. 
You ask me to give you ray understanding of the position of the lamented 
Mr. Stanton at that time, 

"When the election of 1860 closed, it left in the Executive Depart- 
ment President Buchanan, a Democrat, with an entire Democratic 
Cabinet, to remain in office until the 4th of March, when Abraham Lin- 
coln was to be inaugurated President with a Republican Cabinet. 

" Some of the then members of Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet were known 
to be disloyal. General Cass, eminently loyal, was understood to be dis- 
satisfied with the President. 

" The Democratic party had a majority in Congress, and that majority, 
like the President's Cabinet, included a number of persons who avowed 
themselves disloyal, and who ultimately joined the seceders in rebellion. 

"Many disloyal persons held executive and judicial ofiSces throughout 



36 JEREMIAH S. BLACK AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 

the country, and many of the ministers who represented the United 
States in foreign countries were disloyal. The Rebels speedily effected 
an organization, and the administration was known to be holding con- 
ferences with their agents with regard to measures bearing upon disaffected 
States. 

" I was, with you, a member of the Senate, and it early became under- 
stood that I was to be appointed Secretary of State by Mr. Lincoln. In 
this manner it happened that I came to be regarded somewhat exten- 
sively as a person representing the incoming administration and the Re- 
publican party, upon which the preservation of the Union was so soon to 
be devolved. We apprehended the danger of a factious resistance by 
the Rebels at the seat of government, and an outbreak of the revolution 
in Congress ; probably on the occasion of counting the electoral votes, 
or at the inauguration. We were alarmed by plots for the assassination 
of the President on his way from Illinois. 

" There were many suspected officers in the army and the navy ; and 
both those arms of the executive power seemed inadequate to the crisis. 

"I arrived in Washington and took up my residence there immediately 
after the election, and devoted myself thenceforth exclusively to the pub- 
lic service. 

" If my memory serves me, I did not personally know Edwin M. Stan- 
ton until after he was appointed Attorney-General, in place of Hon. 
Jeremiah S. Black, who became Secretary of State on the resignation of 
General Cass. 

" Mr. Peter H. Watson, who during Mr. Lincoln's administration, be- 
came a very devoted and efficient Assistant Secretary of War, was an 
intimate personal friend of Mr. Stanton as well as of myself. Immedi- 
ately after Mr. Stanton took office, he put himself into indirect commu- 
nication with me at my house, employing Mr. Watson for that purpose. 
Every day thereafter, until the inauguration had passed, I conferred 
either in the morning or in the evening or both with ]Mr. Stanton through 
the same agency, and the question what either of us could or ought to 
do at the time for the pnplic welfare was discussed and settled. Mr. 
Watson often brought with him suggestions in writing from Mr. Stanton 
and returned to Mr. Stanton with mine. 

"During all that time I was not in social relations with President Bu- 
chanan, and I took care for that and other reasons not to compromise 
Mr. Stanton, or other loyal members of his Cabinet, by making public 
the conferences which were held between any of them and myself. In 
some cases peculiarly perplexing I had Mr. Stanton's permission to refer 
to him as authority for information I gave some of my Union associates. 
The holding of the consultations was made known by me, with Mr. 
Stanton's consent, to President Lincoln and some other political friends. 
With these exceptions, the consultations between Mr. Stanton and my- 
self were kept by me in entire confidence, and they have remained so. 

" One day, as I was riding through F Street from the Capitol, I met 
Mr. Stanton on foot. We recognized each other, and a hurried explana- 
tion concerning our relations, as they were being conducted through the 
agency of Mr. Watson, took place. We separated quickly, from the 
motive on my part, and I supposed on his, of avoiding public observation. 
This was the only occasion, as I remember, on which I met Mr. Stanton 
until after the expiration of Mr. Buchanan's Presidential term." 

While Mr. Seward forbears giving details of the consultations held 



' JEREMIAH S. BLACK AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 37 

with Mr. Stanton, he states that whenever they had occasion "to discuss 
measures, it was only the right, fitness, expediency, and suEBciency of 
these measures that came in question;" and that Mr. Stanton expressed 
" entire confidence in the loyalty of the President and of the heads of 
the departments who remained in association with him until the close of 
that administration." 

Concerning the midnight visit which so excites the incredulity and in- 
dignation of Mr. Black, Mr. Sumner himself writes : — 

" My acquaintance with Mr. Stanton goes back to ray first entrance 
into the Senate, as long ago as 1851, when Mr. Chase said to me one 
day, ' There is an Ohio friend of mine here who would be glad to know 
you,' and he introduced me to Mr. Stanton. I was busy in the Senate, 
and he was busy in court, so that we saw little of each other, but whenever 
we met it was as friends. I remember well how much he was excited, 
when, in the debate on the Boston petition for the repeal of the Fugitive 
Slave Bill, immediately after the surrender of Anthony Burns, June, 1854, 
I was set upon by the slave-masters of the Senate, Mr. Mason and Mr. 
Butler leading in the assault. Mr. Stanton was on the floor of the 
Senate while I was speaking, and afterwards spoke of the incident with 
much sympathy for me. On the evening of this debate he was at the 
house of our excellent friend Dr. Bailey, who did so much against slavery, 
and there dwelt on the conduct of certain Senators. 

" I always understood that Mr. Sibinton was a Democrat who hated 
slavery ; and when he went into the Cabinet of Mr. Buchanan, I felt that 
the national cause must derive strength from his presence there. Yon do 
not forget those anxious days. At last, in the month of January, 1861, 
while our troops were left to starve in Fort Sumter, I called on him at 
the Attorney-General's office, relying on his patriotism for information 
and counsel with regard to the state of the country. He was in the inner 
room, where he received me kindly, seeming glad to see me. Looking 
about and seeing somebody in the room, he whispered that we must be 
alone, and then passed into the anteroom, where was also somebody, and 
then into the next room, and then into the next, when, finding somebody 
in each room, he opened the door into the corridor, where he began an 
earnest conversation, saying that he must see me alone — that this was 
impossible at his office — that he was watched by the traitors of the South 
— that my visit would be made known to them at once — and he concluded 
by proposing to call on me at my lodgings at one o'clock that night, when 
he would tell me of the fearful condition of affairs as he saw them. I 
said in reply that I would expect him at the time named by him. 

" He came at one o'clock that night, and was alone with me for an hour. 
During this time he described to me the determination of the Southern 
leaders, and developed particularly their plan to obtain possession of the 
national capital and the national archives, so that they might substitute 
themselves for the existing government. I was struck, not only by the 
knowledge he showed of hostile movements, but by his instinctive insight 
into men and things. His particular object was to make us all watchful 
and prepared for the traitors. I saw nobody at the time who had so 
strong a grasp of the whole terrible case. The energies which he dis- 
played afterwards as Secretary of War, and which wore him to death, 
were already conspicuous ; nor can I doubt that, had his spirit prevailed 
in the beginning, the Rebellion would have been strangled at its birth. 

" In the summer that followed, especially during the July session of 



33 JEREMtAH S. BLACK AXD EDWIN M. STANTON. 

Congress, I was in the habit of seeing Mr. Stanton at his house in the 
evening, and conferring with him freely. His standard was high, and he 
constantly spoke with all his accustomed power of our duties in the sup- 
pression of the Rebellion. Nobody was more earnest than himself. Com- 
pared with him the President and Congress seemed slow. 

" It was his burning patriotism and remarkable vigor of character 
which determined his selection as Secretary of War; but at this time he 
was very little known to Senators personally. You may remember that, 
on the receipt of his nomination by the Senate, I rose at onoe, and, after 
stating my acquaintance with him, declared that within my knowledge he 
•was one of us." 

This testimony of Mr. Sumner may satisfy Mr. Black that Mr. Stan- 
ton's midnight visit was actually made, and may give him some insiglit 
into that gentleman's associations and anti-slavery proclivities. It may 
perhaps lead him to modify somewhat his bald and unsupported declara- 
tion that "he had no affinities whatever with men of your [my] school 
in moral or politics," and that " his condemnations of the Abolitionists 
were unsparing for their hypocrisy, their corruption, their enmity to the 
Constitution, and their lawless disregard for the riglits of States and in- 
dividuals." 

Mr. William A. Howard, of Michigan, was for several years a member 
of the House, and a gentleman of large and commanding influence. In 
a letter to Attorney-General Hoai',">under date of the tth of February, 
from which I am permitted to quote, he says: — 

" And now commenced a series of efforts most strange, that lasted 
through two long and fearful months — so fearful, indeed, that even now 
at this late day, and when the Republic is safe — I shudder to think of 
them. If you will refer to the resolutions of the House early in January, 
18G1, under which the special committee, of which I was chairman, was 
appointed, you will see that the committee was clothed with very ample 
powers. That committee was raised at the request of loyal members of 
the Cabinet. The resolutions came from them and were placed in my 
hands with a request that I would offer them, and thus become, if they 
should pass, chairman of the committee. At first I refused to assume so 
fearful a responsibility. But being urged to do so by members and Sen- 
ators, I at last consented to do so, on condition that the Speaker would 
allow me to nominate two members of the committee. I selected Mr. 
Dawes, of Massachusetts, and Mr. Reynolds, of New York. Mr. Rey- 
nolds was elected as a Democrat, but he was true as steel and a good 
lawyer. 

" I do not know that Mr. Stanton wrote the resolutions creating the 
committee. I did not see him write them. 1 never heard him say he 
wrote tliem. It would be easier, however, to persuade me that Mr. Jef- 
ferson did not write the Declaration of Independence than that Mr. Stan- 
ton did not write those resolutions. If he did write them, they are a 
sufficient answer to all that Mr. Black has said or can say. Whoever 
wrote them and requested the House of Representatives to adopt them 
would not have occupied any doubtful position. I do not think I saw 
Mr. Stanton at any time between the 1st of January and the 4th of 
JNLarch, 1861 ; but I think I heard from him more times than were days 
in those two months. The clearest statements of legal rights, defining 
the boundaries of treason, the most startling facts, when the evidences of 
treachery could be found, were furnished. 



JEREMIAH S. BLAOK AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 39 

" One of the secretaries had accepted the resignation of officers who 
had joined the Rebellion, and had dated back the resignations, in one 
case two days, for the avowed purpose of protecting the scoundrel from 
trial by naval or military law, for leading the attack on the Pensacola 
Navy- Yard on the 12th day of January, 1861, while he still held his 
commission. The letter covering the resignation stated that the resigna- 
tion was written on the 13th, but dated back to the 11th, the day before 
the attack, and he wanted the acceptance to be dated from that day, so as 
to save him from military law. It boasted that they had smashed the 
civil courts in Florida. The resignation was received at the department 
on the 22d day of January, at eight o'clock in the afternoon ; but the ac- 
ceptance was dated on the Uth as requested. I state dates from memory, 
and may not be entirely accurate. We were put upon this inquiry by 
information brought to us by a ' bird' which flew directly from some 
Cabinet minister to the coramittee-room. I never suspected Mr. Black 
or Mr. Toucey of tiiis 'impropriety.' If I suspected Mr. Stanton or 
Mr. Dix or Mr. Holt, it was because they were 'suspicious characters.' 

" We were more than once told it would probably be necessary to arrest 
a certain member of the Cabinet for treason. Once we were told it would 
probably have to be within an hour, but to wait until we could hear a 
second time. W,ord came to hold on. Those messages certainly came 
from some member of the Cabinet. I always supposed something was 
going on there about that time. If so, probably Mr. Black did not 
know anything about it; and most likely Mr. Stanton's great modesty 
prevented liis doing or saying anything about it. Mr. Black informs us, too, 
that Mr. Stanton was at that time a ' Democrat;' perhaps that prevented 
his doing anything about these matters. For obvious reasons, personal 
interviews with Cabinet ministers were avoided during the labors of the 
committee ; but I do know I many times sent inquiries, and received an- 
swers with great promptness, conveying information of great importance. 
But these communications were indirect and anonymous." 

Equally explicit is the testimony of Mr. Dawes, another member of that 
committee. In an article written immediately after the death of Mr. 
S'tanton, and published in the " Congregationalist," of Boston, he stated 
that some of the most important and secret plans of the conspirators he- 
came known and were thwarted by means of communications from Mr. 
Stanton to the committee. " Once a member of tliat committee," said 
Mr. Dawes in this article, "read by the light of the street lamps these 

words : ' Secretary is a traitor, depend upon it. He declared in 

Cabinet to-day that he did twt want to deliver this govermnent intact into the 
hands of the black Republicans. Arrest him instantly, or all will be lost ' 
The paper went back to its hiding-place, but the Secretary, though he 
walked the streets unmolested, was watched from that hour." 

Who can question the truthfulness of these testimonies ? Who can 
doubt the fact that Mr. Stanton, in the extraordinary emergencies of that 
dark winter, did put himself in communication with Republican members 
of Congress ? Who can resist the belief that the motives which then ac- 
tuated him were as pure and lofty as ever glowed in a patriot's bosom ? 
Will the naked and unsupported assertions and imputations of Mr. Black, 
however vehemently and persistently made, shake the faith and confidence 
of the American people in the loyalty and honor of Edwin M. Stanton ? 

In my article, I stated, on what I deemed unquestionable authority, 
that Mr. Stanton had, before entering the Cabinet, advised Mr. Buchanan 



•iO JEREMIAH S. BLACK AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 

to incorporate into his message the doctrine that the Federal government 
had the power, and that it was its duty, to coerce seceding States. Mr. 
Black positively declares that Mr. Stanton never was consulted on that 
subject by the President, and that he never gave such advice. Mr. Dawes, 
in his article in the " Congregationalist," makes this statement in clear 
and emphatic language. 

" It was," he says, " while these plans for a coup d'etat before the 4th of 
March were being matured in the very Cabinet itself, and in the presence 
of a President too feeble to resist them and too blind even to see them, that 
Mr. Stanton was sent for by Mr. Buchanan, to answer the question, ' Can 
a State be coerced V For two hours lie battled, and finally scattered for 
the time being the heresies with which secession had tilled the head of 
that old broken-down man. He was requested to prepare an argument 
in support of the power, to be inserted in the forthcoming message. He 
did it in language that neither time nor argument has improved upon, 
and his statement of the power was adopted by the President and in- 
serted in the message. Had it remained as the doctrine of the adminis- 
tration, its whole attitude towards the Rebellion would have been changed, 
^nd the result no one can now state. 

"Mr. Stanton left the city immediately, for the trial of an important 
cause in Pittsburg, and saw no more of the President or men in Wash- 
ington, until summoned by telegraph to a place in the crumbling Cabinet 
in the last days of December. Meantime the traitors had overborne the 
President and events were rapidly culminating. Two days before the 
meeting of Congress they had frightened him into expunging from his 
message the assertion of the power to coerce a State in rebellion, and to 
insert in its place the contrary doctrine." 

This statement was made on the authority of Mr. Stanton himself. In 
a letter written to me a few weeks since Mr. Dawes says: "When Mr. 
Washburne and I lived together on Fourteenth Street, near Mr. Stanton's, 
he used to call and see us occasionally. He stayed very late one night, 
telling us all about his connections with Mr. Buchanan's administration 
and the war. At that time he told us the story of Mr. Buchanan's send- 
ing for him before his last regular message, as I related it in the 'Con- 
gregationalist.' " Perhaps this positive assertion of Mr. Stanton himself 
to Mr. Dawes and Mr. Washburne will weigh quite as much with the 
American people as the merely negative statement of ^[r. Black. 

While admitting that Mr. Stanton had always been a Democrat till he 
took his place in the Republican party during the war, I stated in my 
article in the "Atlantic" that he had "early imbibed antisluvcry senti- 
ments. " I referred to his Quaker descent; to his grandfather's emanci- 
pation of his slaves ; to the fact, which he frequently referred to, that 
Benjamin Lundy was wont to visit his father's house, and that he had 
sat upon his knee and listened to his antislavery teachings ; to the state- 
ment made me by Mr. Chase himself, that Mr. Stanton accosted him in 
the streets, nearly thirty years before, and said that he was in entire 
accord with the antislavery sentiments he had just put forth ; and to the 
well-known fact that he was a frequent guest at Dr. Bailey's house, where 
he often met and associated with antislavery men. Mr. Black seems 
shocked at this statement. He emphatically declares that the Democrats 
gave ^[r. Stanton "office, honor, and fortune;" that if my statement be 
true, " he was the most marvellous impostor that ever lived or died." 
Perhaps a liberty-loving people will be more charitable towards Mr. 



JEREMIAH S. BLACK AND E'DWIN M. STANTON". 41 

Stanton than Mr. Black is. They will hardly join hira in declaring it 
" cold-blooded and deliberate treachery" simply because, though a Demo- 
crat, he faintly cherished the antislavery teachings of his youth. They 
will rather respond to the words recently written to me by the veteran 
abolitionists Theodore D. Weld and Samuel May. 

" In the early spring of 1835," writes Mr. Weld, "I gave a course of 
lectures upon slavery in Steubenville, Ohio. In the announcement of 
the course objections and discussion were invited. Before going to the 
first lecture I was told that a young lawyer was to reply to me ; at the 
close I called for objections. None were made, and the audience dis- 
persed. At the next there was the same invitation and the same result. 
On the morning after, a young man, whom I had observed taking notes 
at the lectures, sought me at my lodgings and introduced himself as Mr. 
Stanton, saying in substance, 'I meant to fight you, but my guns are 
spiked, and I have come to say that I see, with you, that all men hold 
their rights by the same title-deed, that the slaveholder in picking flaws 
in the slave's title-deed picks the same in his own and in every man's.' A 
conversation of half an hour followed, during which he greatly impressed 
me with his hearty frankness, independence, moral insight, and keen 
mental force. Grod be thanked that, a quarter of a century later, the 
nation had such a man to lead its forlorn hope triumphant through its 
darkest hour." 

Mr. May, in a letter recently received, asks : " Did you ever hear Mr. 
Stanton speak of B. Lundy ? Do you remember taking me to his room 
when I went to Washington to get signatures to the testimonial circular 
letter for Garrison, and introducing me to hira with some words as to my 
errand ? After getting through with three or four persons who had pre- 
cedence, he, still standing behind his ' standing desk,' after a few words 
and inquiries about Mr. Garrison, began to speak of visits which Lundy 
made to his father's house, when he (E. M. S.) was a boy ; of the long 
talks always on slavery which Mr. Lundy and his father had together, 
and of the silent interest he took in them. He had evidently grown up 
with a ^reat reverence for Mr. Lundy. Who can tell how far these re- 
peated talks of Lundy in the humble farm-house in Ohio, so long ago, 
were a power in preparing the future Secretary of War, who was to 
grasp the entire strength and resources of the nation in his hand, and 
wield them for slavery's final destruction ? For myself, I was perfectly 
convinced, from the deep and earnest tone in which he spoke of Lundy, 
that he recognized a spirit which had controlled and shaped his own. 
And when in another (briefer) interview, two or three days later, I found 
him again leading the conversation to Lundy and those early visits to his 
father's house, I was made sure of my first impression, and I rejoiced in 
the Providential arrangement which had caused that early seed, sown in 
simple faith, to find a soil suited to it when, 'though buried long,' it should 
not 'deceive the hope.' Benjamin Lundy's ' soul was marching on,' when 
Stanton planned and directed the gigantic measures, before which even 
the seemingly unconquerable monster slavery was compelled to yield and 
die." 

And here I notice Mr. Black's denial that Mr. Stanton indorsed Mr. 
Cameron's proposition to arm the negroes. He afiirms with great posi- 
tiveness that it was " morally impossible" that Mr. Stanton should have 
done so, for the reason that " he was at that time a white man, every 
inch of him, proud of the great race he sprung from, and full of faith in 



42 JEREMIAH S. BLACK AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 

its capacity to fight its own battles and govern itself;" and that "nothing 
could iiave humiliated him more than to see the American people relin- 
quish their rightful place in the front rank of the world, surrender their 
inheritance of free government, and sneak back behind the African for 
protection in war or in peace." This base utterance sufficiently reveals 
the animus of Jeremiah S. Black, but it does not prove that Edwin M, 
Stanton was not early in favor of arming l)lack men for the defence of 
the imperilled nation. That it does not prove it, is rendered certain by 
the testimony of Mr. Cameron himself. In a note recently received by 
me he says: "I submitted my report, when Secretary of War in 1861, 
to several gentlemen, chiefly from my own State, and many of them op- 
posed it. Wearied with objections to a measure on the adoption of which 
I was convinced the existence of the nation might ultimately depend, I 
sought out another counsellor — one of broad views, great courage, and 
of tremendous earnestness. It was Edwin M. Stanton. He read the 
report carefully, and after suggesting a few verbal alterations, calculated 
to make it stronger, he gave it his unequivocal and hearty support." 

By the act of July, 1862, the President was authorized to receive for 
military purposes persons of African descent. Some time afterwards 
Mr. Stanton referred to General Holt the question of the right and duty 
of the government to employ persons of African descent as soldiers. 
That gentleman made an elaborate, vigorous, and elo([iient report in favor 
of receiving into the armies persons irrespective of creed or color. Mr. 
Holt, in a note addressed to me under date of 18th of June, says : "Soon 
after this report had been received and read by Mr. Stanton, he warmly 
thanked me for it, and left the impression on my mind of his entire 
concurrence in its views. Some time afterwards, in one of those unre- 
served conversations which we occasionally had upon the al)Sorbing 
questions of the day, he declared substantially, and with the vehemence 
which often characterized him in the discussion of such topics, that the 
war could never he successfully closed for the government, without the em- 
ployment of colored troops in the field. The importance of this declara- 
tion at that juncture, added to the solemn earnestness with whick it was 
uttered, fixed it indelibly upon my memory. I could not have been 
mistaken in then regarding him as the decided and persistent advocate 
of this policy." 

Mr. Black, with reckless audacity, declares too that the scene in the 
Cabinet, when the intelligence was received that Colonel Anderson had 
removed from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, " is a pure and perfectly 
baseless fabrication," "completely exploded by the record, which shows 
that Colonel Anderson's transfer of his forces from Fort Moultrie to Fort 
Sumter was in literal obedience to orders from the President, which Floyd 
himself had drawn up, signed and transmitted." This assertion is made 
in the face of their dispatches, now on file in the War Department, as cer- 
tified to by Adjutant-General Townsend, under date of 19th of July. 

War Department, December 27, 1860. 
To Major R. Anderson, U. S. A., Fort Moultrie, Charleston, S. C. 

Intelligence has reached here thfs morning that you have abandoned 
Fort Moultrie, spiked your guns, burnt the carriages, and gone to Fort 
Sumter. It is not believed, because there is no order for such movement. 
Exj)lain the meaning of this report. 

(Signed) J. B. FLOYD, 

Secretary of War. 



JEREMIAH S. BLACK AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 43 

This declaration of Floyd to Anderson, that " there is no order for any 
such movement," conclusively shows the construction he put upon pre- 
vious orders, and is a complete refutation of Black's assumption and as- 
sertions. The following despatch of Colonel Anderson shows, too, that 
he did not act upon any previous order, but upon his own responsi- 
bility : — 

Charleston, December 27, 1860. 
To Hon. J. B. Floyd, Secretary of War. 

The telegram is correct. I abandoned Fort Moultrie because I was 
certain that, if attacked, my men must have been sacrificed and the com- 
mand of the harbor lost. I spiked the guns and destroyed the carriages 
to keep the guns from being used against us. If attacked, the garrison 
would never have surrendered without a fight. 

(Signed) ROBERT ANDERSON, 

Major First Artillery. 

That Floyd was disappointed and exasperated beyond all bounds by 
the raoveraQ.nt of Colonel Anderson is abundantly proven. General Holt, 
at that time member of Buchanan's Cabinet, in his brilliant speech at the 
banquet in Charleston, on the evening of the 14th of April, 1865, after 
the flag-raising at Fort Sumter, thus referred to the mortification, anguish, 
and fury of the baffled traitor. " When intelligence reached the capital," 
says Mr. Holt, and it will be remembered that he spoke from personal 
knowledge, " that by a bold and dexterous movement this command had 
been transferred from Moultrie to Sumter, and was safe from the disabled 
guns left behind, the emotions of Floyd were absolutely uncontrollable — 
emotions of mingled mortification and anguish and rage and panic. His 
fury seemed that of some baffled fiend, who discovers suddenly opening 
at his own feet the gulf of ruin which he has been preparing for another. 
Over all the details of this passionate outburst of a conspirator, caught 
and entangled in his own toils, the veil of official secrecy still hangs, and 
it may be that history will never be privileged to transfer this memorable 
scene to its pages. There is one, however, whose absence to-day we have 
all deplored, and to whom the nation is grateful for the masterly ability 
and lion-like courage with which he has fought this Rebellion in all the 
vicissitudes of its career — your Secretary of War, who, were he here, 
could bear testimony to the truthfulness of my words. He looked upon 
that scene, and the country needs not now to be told that he looked upon 
it with scorn and defiance." 

This speech made the tour of the country, was published in pamphlet 
form, and Mr. Biack must have seen it. He, however, uttered no denial, 
and demanded no explanation, while Mr. Stanton lived. Now that the 
great Secretary's lips are closed in death, his for the first time are opened. 
But though Mr. Stanton shall never bear testimony again upon the point, 
there are those, now living, of unquestioned probity, who remember his 
description of the scene. Mr. Dawes, in the letter already quoted, states, 
in corroboration of his own and Mr. Washburn's recollections, that "Mrs. 
Dawes distinctly remembers hearing Mr. Stanton tell at our house the 
story of that terrible conflict in the Cabinet." 

Mr. Black's denial of that Cabinet scene is rather the argument of a 
tricky advocate than the unbiased testimony of an honest witness. His 
argument is that, because Mr. Stanton, when the eyes of traitorous spies 
were upon him, sought an interview with Mr. Sumner in the darkness of 



44 JEREMIAH S. BLACK AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 

night, he was such "a dastard," "crawling sycophant," and "stealthy- 
spy," that he " must have been wholly unfitted to play the part of Jupiter 
Touans in a square and opeu conflict," and that it was " not possible that 
the fearless Stanton of your ' Cabinet scene' could be the same Stanton 
who, at one o'clock, was 'squat like a toad' at the ear of Sumner." Is 
such a shuffling and skulking mode of denial, made by one who manifestly 
feels himself to be on the defensive, to outweigh the declarations of Mr. 
Stanton made to credible witnesses, and the positive averments of Joseph 
Holt? Mr. Black, having denied, after a manner, that there was such a 
Cabinet controversy, in which Mr. Floyd and Mr. Stanton were actors, 
adds in a semi-heroic style : " I take upon me to deny most emphatically 
that Mr. Stanton ever 'wrote a full and detailed account of that Cabinet 
scene.'" " I can show that your assertion is incredible." He then pro- 
ceeds to make an argument in support of his denial, but the testimony of 
Judge Holt is conclusive. He writes : — 

" Several years ago, Mr. Stanton read to me, in the War Department, 
a letter addressed by him to Mr. Schell, of New York, in answer to one 
from that gentleman, wherein he set forth quite in denial wh^t was said 
and done at the meeting of Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet, which was followed 
at once, as I now remember it, by Mr. Floyd's resignation. The delibera- 
tions and discussions of that, as of other Cabinet meetings, being then 
and still held under the seals of official confidence, I cannot, of course, 
repeat what the statements of this letter were, but can only affirm that 
they accorded with my own recollection of the facts. I requested of Mr. 
Stanton a copy of this letter, which he promised to furnish me, but under 
the pressure of his official labors and engagements the matter was prob- 
ably lost sight of, as the copy never reached me. Subsequently he in- 
formed me that the letter had never been sent, he having, as I understood 
it, come to the conclusion that such disclosures would not be justified, 
unless made with the consent of the parties to the Cabinet meeting, and 
to the deliberations referred to." 

With his usual audacity and utter obliviousness of facts Mr. Black de- 
nies my statement that Floyd, while Secretary of War, sent arms " where 
they could be clutched by conspirators." This direct denial of a state- 
ment founded on documentary evidence is amazing. While sitting in the 
Cabinet, Floyd was in sympathy and co-operation with Southern leaders 
who were preparing for secession and rebellion. Arms by his orders were 
sent from Northern armories and arsenals to arsenals in the South. Ben- 
jamin Stanton, of Ohio, chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs 
of the House of Representatives, asked of the Secretary of War a state- 
ment, showing the number of arms sent from the armories and arsenals at 
the North to those at the South. In compliance with directions of Gene- 
ral Holt, Secretary of War, Colonel H. K. Craig, of the ordnance office, 
reported on the 15th of January, ISGl, that " on the 30th day of Decem- 
ber, 1859, an order was received from the War Department, directing the 
transfer of 115,000 arms from the Springfield Armory and the Watertown 
and Watervliet Arsenals to different arsenals at the South. Orders were 
given in obedience to those instructions on the 30th day of January, 1800, 
and the arms were removed during the past spring." He also added that 
these arms, which had been sent to South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, 
and Louisiana, numbering 63,000, had already been seized by the Rebels. 

Colonel jSlagnadin, of the Ordnance Office, was examined by the 
House Committee on Military Affairs, and stated that, in obedience to 



JEREMIAH S. BLACK AND EDWIN" M. STANTON. 45 

the " naked order" of Secretary Floyd, he ordered from Pittsburj? " forty 
colurabiads and four 32-pounders to the fort on Ship Island, and seventy 
cohimbiads and seven 32-pounders to the fort at Galveston." These 
heavy guns were ordered to be sent to forts where not one could be 
mounted. General Patten, in a report made to General Holt, Secretary 
of War, under date of 8th of January, 1861, stated that not a gun could 
be mounted at Ship Island; that only eighty thousand dollars had been 
appropriated to the fort at Galveston, which would cost nearly half a 
million ; that ground was not broken, and the foundation walls were not 
laid, and it would take five years to finish it. The patriotic people of 
Pittsburg protested against the removal of these guns ; and when General 
Holt entered the War Office he at once countermanded Floyd's treasonable 
order. Notwithstanding these facts, which are matters of record and 
within the reach of all, Mr. Black interposes his astounding denial. If, 
when verification is at hand, he is so reckless in his statements, what con- 
fidence can be placed upon his otherwise unsupported assertions ? 

In my article I incidentally referred to what I had understood to be the 
fact, that Mr. Cameron had proposed to resign his commission as Secre- 
tary of War, provided a successor could be appointed not unfriendly to 
him, and that he had suggested Mr. Stanton. Mr. Black avers that this 
was not so, that Mr. Cameron did not resign, was in fact removed, and 
had no part in naming a successor. I am content to rest the case upon 
the following testimonies. Mr. Cameron in a recent note to me, writes: — 

" I called on Mr. Lincoln, and suggested Edwin M. Stanton to him 
as my successor. He hesitated ; but after listening to me for a time, he 
yielded, and sent me to offer the place of Secretary of War to him, and 
added : ' Tell him, Cameron, if he accepts, I will send his nomination as 
Secretary, and yours as Minister to Russia, to the Senate together.'" 

Senator Chandler, in a recent note, writes : " Before Cameron resigned, 
lie invited me to breakfast at his house to meet Edwin M. Stanton, whom 
I had then never met, and told me that the gentleman I was to meet had 
been nominated for Secretary of War, at his request. At breakfast, the 
fact of Cameron's having recommended Mr. Stanton as his successor was 
not only mentioned, but the meeting was expressly for the purpose of 
enabling some one on whose friendship Mr. Cameron placed reliance to 
judge of the wisdom of his course, by actual contact with the coming 
Secretary." 

This statement of Mr. Chandler, concerning the meeting at the house 
of Mr. Cameron, is corroborated by the following extract from a letter 
addressed to me by Mr. Wade. " I recollect," he says, " very well, that 
Mr. Cameron made known to Mr. Chandler and myself his determina- 
tion to resign his position as Secretary of War, and recommend to Mr. 
Lincoln.Mr. Stanton as his successor in that department. From my long 
acquaintance with Mr. Stanton, and ray confidence in his ability, integ- 
rity, and fitness for the place, as well as his determined antislavery prin- 
ciples, I was much pleased with the suggestion, as was Mr. Chandler. 
Shortly after this we were invited to breakfast at Mr. Cameron's, to meet 
Mr. Stanton, at which meeting Mr. Cameron mentioned to Mr. Stanton 
the resolution he had come to, and that gentleman reluctantly gave us to 
understand that, if he was offered the appointment, he would accept." 

From Senator Ramsey I have received a note, in which he says: "I 
desire to relate a circumstance which carries with it the best attainable 
evidence of the truth of your statement — the words of Mr. Stanton him- 



46 JEREMIAH S. BLACK AND EDWIN M. STANTON. 

self. I met Senator Cameron and Mr. Stanton at Mr. Chandler's house, 
in Washington, during the impeachment of President Johnson. In con- 
versation, Mr. Stanton, referring to the unpleasant and delicate situation 
in which he was placed, in seeming to cling to an office which the Presi- 
dent was determined to drive him from, said, half playfully, pointing to 
General Cameron : ' This gentleman is the man who has brought all this 
tronl)le upon me, by recommending me to Mr. Lincoln for Secretary of 
War, and then urging me to accept the place.'" 

Chief Justice Chase, in a letter written to Mr. Cameron, from which I 
am permitted to quote, is still more explicit and conclusive on the point 
at issue : " Senator Wilson is quite right in his statement that you re- 
signed the post of Secretary of War, and that you indicated Mr. Stanton 
as your successor. I supposed myself at the time, and still suppose, 
that I was well informed as to the circumstances. Some time before you 
resigned, you expressed to me your preference for the position of Minister 
to St. Petersburg, and I conversed with Mr. Lincoln on the subject under 
your sanction. No intimation of a thought on Mr. Lincoln's part that 
the resignation of the one post, and the acceptance of the other, were 
not purely voluntary acts on your part was received by me. Nor have 
I now any belief that it was not at the lime wholly at your option to 
remain in the Cabinet, or to leave it for the honorable and important 
position offered to you." 

In illustration of Mr. Stanton's readiness, in great emergencies, to 
take responsibilities, 1 cited the fact that he placed in the hands of Gov- 
ernor Morton, of Indiana, a quarter of a million of dollars, out of an un- 
expended appropriation, made nearly two years before, for raising troops 
in States in insurrection. Mr. Black takes up this simple statement of a 
fact, criticizes it at great length, declares that " the whole story is bogus," 
pronounces it " untrue in the aggregate and in detail, in the sum total 
and in every item." He declared Governor Morton's purpose in going 
to Washington to be " to demand payment of a debt due, and acknow- 
ledged to be due, from the United States to the State of Indiana ;" that 
" the money had been appropriated by Congress to pay it, and it was 
paid according to law." His whole statement touching this point is full 
of unconcealed, not to say ostentatious, malignity, and betrays either a 
reckless disregard of truth or an inexcusable ignorance. 

The simple facts are these : The Democratic party in 1862 carried 
Indiana. At once its presses announced that the military power would 
be taken from the Governor, and the Indiana Legion would be disbanded. 
The Legislature was opened by violent and inflammatory speeches. The 
House of Representatives returned Governor Morton's message to him, 
and passed a resolution accepting the message of Governor Seymour of 
New York. The threatened military measures were introduced, taking 
from the Governor all military power, and conferring it upon the State 
Auditor, Treasurer, Secretary of State, and Attorney-General. To de- 
feat such unconstitutional and revolutionary measures, the Republican 
members of the House withdrew from the Legislature, and it adjourned 
without the necessary legislation to defray the ordinary expenses of the 
State. Governor* Morton, believing it would be madness to do so, refused 
to call an extra session, appealed to the loyal people to stand by him ; and 
counties, banks, railroad com])anies, and private individuals promptly 
came forward and supplied him with money to meet pressing demands 
upon the treasury. 



JEREMIAH S. BLACK AND EDWIN M. STANTON, 47 

Tn that eraergency Governor Morton went to Washington, not, as 
Bhick falsely says, to demand payment of a debt due, and acknowledged 
to be due, from the United States to Indiana, but, in the Governor's own 
words, to apply " for an advance under an appropriation made by Con- 
gress, July 31, 1861." That act appropriated two million dollars to be 
expended under the direction of the President in supplying and defray- 
ing the expenses of transporting and delivering such arms and munitions 
of war as in his judgment might be expedient " to place in the hands of 
any of the loyal citizens residing in any of the States of which the in- 
habitants are in rebellion against the government of the United States, 
or in which rebellion is or may be threatened." That appropriation 
most clearly had been made to supply arms and defray expenses only in 
States where the inhabitants were in rebellion, or where rebellion was or 
might be threatened. Were the inhabitants of Indiana in rebellion ? 
Did rebellion exist in that State ? Was rebellion " threatened ?" These 
were the questions to be answered. After full consideration of the con- 
dition of affairs in that State, the menaced action of the dominant party 
in the Legislature, and the lawless conduct of " The Knights of the 
Golden Circle" and the " Sons of Liberty," Mr. Stanton took the re- 
sponsibility, decided that Indiana ivas "threatened" with rebellion, and 
intrusted to Governor Morton, as disbursing oflQcer, two hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars out of that appropriation. And in so doing, instead 
of deserving the objurgatory epithets applied to him by Black, he merits 
and will ever receive the grateful admiration of his loyal countrymen. 

In his message to the Legislature, in January, 1865, Governor Morton, 
in giving an account of this proceeding, said : " It will be perceived that 
this money was not paid to me as a loan to the State or an advance to the 
State upon debts due to her by the general government, and creates no 
debt against the State whatever, but that in theory it is an expenditure 
made by the President through me as his disbursing agent." And yet, 
in face of this official declaration, Mr. Black has the effrontery to assert 
that this money, so placed in the Govern/Jr's hands, was in " payment of 
a debt due, and acknowledged to be due, from the United States to the 
State of Indiana," and that " the money had been appropriated by Con- 
gress to pay it, and it was paid according to law." 

I have thus noticed the assumptions and assertions of Mr. Black in the 
arraignment and criticisms of his article in " The Galaxy." In the light 
of this review an intelligent public will not be slow to note the wide dis- 
crepancies between his statements and the authentic facts as they now 
appear, on the authority of official records and the testimonies of unim- 
peachable witnesses. Nor will they fail to come to the conclusion that, 
either through lack of intelligence and needful research, or through 
natural perversities of mind or heart, he is eminently untrustworthy, 
and wholly unfitted to examine, criticize, or review the labors of others 
relating to the historic events of our times. 



48 MR. BLACK TO MR, WILS02T. 



MR. BLACK TO MR. WILSON. 

BY HON. J. S. BLACK. 

To the Honorable Henry Wilson, Senator from Massaclntsetts. ) 

Contrary to my first intention, and not without reluctance, I lay 
aside other business of far greater importance while I take a brief re- 
view of your supplemental eulogy on Stanton. The occurrences which 
caused this change of mind might require explanation, but they are too 
entirely personal to occupy any space in these pages. Without more 
preface I give you my thought on your latest essay. 

You take violent exceptions to my former letter as being vituperative 
and ill-tempered. Let us see how the account stands between us on the 
score of mere manners, and then determine whether you have a right to 
set yourself as an arbiter elegantiartim. 

You wrote, or caused to be written, and published in a magazine of 
large circulation, an article in which you attacked the reputation of cer- 
tain persons in a style so scandalous that vitui)eration is no name for it. 
Without reserve or qualification you pronounced them guilty of the worst 
crimes known among men. The specific acts of which you accused them, 
and the opprobrious epithets you applied to them, were as insulting as 
you could make them. Most of the gentlemen thus assailed were dead ; 
but that made no difference to you ; your invective was not checked by 
any regard for the feelings of friends or relatives. The indecency of 
this was greatly aggravated by the fact that you put it in the form 
of a funeral panegyric upon a man whose recent and sudden death should 
have sobered your party rage and solemnized your heart, or at least 
operated as a temporary sedative upon your appetite for defamation. 
What was I to do? My first impulse was — no matter what; I did not 
obey it. But I concluded that all the purposes of a fair vindication 
might be accomplished by a simple contradiction of your statements, 
coupled with the plain reasons which would show them to be unworthy 
of belief. I did this, and I did no more. I did it in terms so free from 
unnecessary harshness that I am amazed this moment at my own mode- 
ration. But you affirm my denial to be an act of "reckless audacity;" 
in your eyes my (?e-fence is an o/'-fence. I really cannot understand this, 
unless you suppose that your political opponents have no rights, even of 
refutation, which you are bound to respect, and that slander, like other 
injuries, is consecrated by loyalty when a Democrat is the sufl'erer. 

You make no attempt to impugn the soundness or truth of the law as 
I gave it to the President on the 20th of November, 1860. That opinion 
was very simple as it stood upon the record ; and in my former letter I 
gave you the elementary principles, clarified by the most familiar illus- 
trations, and brought the whole subject down to the level of the lowest 
understanding. Besides, you had the aid of about a dozen Senators 
and members of Congress in getting up your reply. With all these helps 
you certainly might have specified some error in the opinion, if it be 
erroneous. But you content yourself with merely railing at it. I think 
I may say, with more confidence than ever, that "you cannot be so 
ignorant of the fundamental law as not to know that our exposition of it 
was perfectly sound and correct." 



MR. BLACK TO MR. WILSOlSr. 49 

While you do not deny its truth, you think you annihilate it by the as- 
sertion that it is extensively disapproved. Do you really believe that 
an officer, dealing with questions of law, is bound to be popular rather 
than right? Will you never learn that "statesmen" and "patriots" of 
your school have notions about all the political virtues which a sound 
morality holds in utter detestation ? To flatter the passions and cajole 
the understanding of the people is not the highest object of any honest 
man's ambition. Mr. Jefferson thought he ought to "do them as much 
good as possible in spite of their teeth." But on your theory, to be 
" ever strong upon the stronger side" is not only good fortune, but high 
desert; while it is mere imbecility t-o offend the powerful by letting the 
countenance of the law shine upon the weak or the oppressed, who cannot 
reward you with office or money. If your theological opinions conform 
to your ideas of political duty, you esteem the luck of Barabbas as more 
meritorious than the fidelity of John, or the devotion of all the Marys. 

No doubt there was then, as there is now, a set of " small but fero- 
cious politicians," who became completely infuriated against me because 
I did not falsify the law, advise the President to violate the Constitution, 
and thus bring on an immediate dissolution of the Union. But you can 
hardly expect me to regret that I did not escape their censure. They were 
men who had been taught that enmity to the Constitution was the sura 
of all public and private virtue. There certainly is not an uncorrupted 
man in the country who will say that I was to blame for giving the law 
faithfully and truly. 

You declare that " contemporaneous history has already pronounced" 
against me, and you quote a few words of twaddle, apparently from the 
writings of some one whose name you are ashamed to mention. You call this 
a judgment upon me which posterity is not likely to reverse. Political 
power dishonestly wielded always has hacks to defend its excesses by 
maligning its opponents. A dozen books of that character have been 
printed within the last seven years. These productions come within the 
awkward description you have given of your own ; they are " not history 
or biography, nor intended to be ;" they are places of deposit for worn- 
out calumnies — mere sewers into which the filth of the party is drained 
off. I hope I am tolerably secure from the praises of this venal tribe ; 
and their abuse is prima facie evidence of a character at least negatively 
good. It is not worth while for you or me to trouble ourselves about 
■posterity, for posterity will not probably take much account of us. No 
doubt you did all in your power to subvert the free institutions of our 
Eevolutionary fathers, and to debauch the political morals of the coun- 
try ; but the utmost exertion of your abilities has not sufficed to raise you 
above the common file of partisans who have engaged in the same evil 
work. On the other hand, the cause of liberty regulated by law has had 
a crowd of advocates so infinitely superior to me that my feeble efforts 
cannot be expected to attract the notice of future generations. 

You make no attempt to justify your abuse of Mr. Buchanan ; you do 
not repeat your charge against Mr. Toucey of scattering the ships of the 
navy to render that arm powerless ; nor do you now pretend to assert that 
Mr. Thompson was guilty of robbing the Indian trust funds. But you 
offer no reparation, nor even make an excuse, for the wanton and unpro- 
voked injury which you tried to commit upon the character of the Living 
and the memory of the dead. You sullenly permit judgment to be ren- 
dered against you by nil dicit. I mention this only to say, that it very 
4 



50 MR. BLACK TO MR, WILSON. 

serionsly afiFects your credibility upon the other points. Falsvs in tino, 
falsus in omnibus. 

You pervert my words and my meaning when yon say that I repre- 
sented Mr. Thompson as being above the range of ordinary mortals. I 
merely declared that his mental ability, good sense, and common honesty 
placed him very far beyond you, who had assailed him with a false charge 
of felonious robbery. You do not see the justice of this comparison, 
and you think that if I had not been a mere lawyer, having "little ac- 
quaintance or association with statesmen," I might have entertained a 
different notion. Although I consider my calling to be as reputable as 
any that you ever followed either before or after you took up the trade 
of a politician, you may make what deduction you please on that account 
from the value of my judgment ; but you must not interfere with my un- 
doubted right to believe (as I do most devoutly) that it would take a 
great many Wilsons to make one Thompson. 

It was not to be expected that Governor Floyd would escape your 
maledictions. No public man ever provoked such a storm of popular 
wrath as he did. The President, who had trusted him, withdrew his con- 
fidence, drove him from his counsels, and ordered him to be indicted for 
malversation in office. His colleagues left him to his fate, and there was 
nobody in all this land to take his part. He had some qualities which 
commanded the respect of folks like you as long as he lived and moved 
among yon. But absent, unfriended, defenceless, dead — fallen in a lost 
cause and buried in an obscure grave — he was the very man of all others, 
in or out of the world, whom your magnanimity would prompt you to 
attack. But why did you not charge him with misconduct in the financial 
management of his department ? That might have provoked a compari- 
son between him and Cameron, much to the disadvantage of the latter, 
whom you wished to court, to flatter, and whitewash. Therefore, you 
preferred to take up the exploded charge of sending guns and munitions 
to the South for the use of the secessionists in the war. Your first paper 
had nothing in it on this subject except the bald assertion, and I was 
content with a naked denial. But in your last you come back with a 
more extended averment and produce what you seem to suppose will be 
taken as evidence by at least some of your readers. Let us look at it. 

A committee was appointed by the House of Representatives in Jan- 
uary, 1801, to ascertain how the public arms distributed during the year 
186U had been disposed of. Mr. Floyd was not present at the investiga- 
tion ; he had not a friend on the committee ; it was " organized to con- 
vict" him if it could. It reported the evidence, but gave no judgment 
criminating him with the offence you accuse him of. On the contrary, the 
opinion was expressed by the chairman that the charges were founded in 
"rumor, speculation, and misapprehension." But you take up the re- 
ported evidence and try to make out a case which the committee did not 
make out by carefully suppressing all the principal facts and misstating 
the others. 

Your charge of fraudulently sending arms to the South cannot be true 
of the heavy arras made at Pittsburgh for the forts in Louisiana and Texas, 
because they were not sent at ail. Floyd gave an order to ship them on 
the 20th of December, 1860, but it was revoked by the President before 
a gun wos started. It is, of course, possible that Floyd, in making the 
order, acted in bad faith ; but there is no proof of that. On the con- 
trary, Colonel Maynadier, an honest as well as a sharp man, and a most 
vigilant ofiBcer, who knew all the facts of the ease, and understood Floyd's 



MR. BLACK TO MR. WILSON. 51 

attitude with regard to secession and union as well as anybody in the 
whole country, cheerfully set about the business of carrying out the order, 
though it \)'as not in writing, and testified that he had no suspicion of any 
improper object or motive in it. In fact and in truth, Floyd was not, in 
sentiment or in action, a secessionist until after he saw that the breach 
between himself and the President, which originated in other matters, 
was irreparable. Up to the time when he got notice that he must resign, 
he was steadily opposed to the Southern movement, and the bitterest ene- 
mies he had were the leading men of that section. Colonel Maynadier 
says that " he was regarded throughout the country as a strong advocate 
of the Union and opponent of secession ; and he adds, as a confirmation 
of this, that " he had recently published over his own signature in a Rich- 
mond paper a letter on this subject which gained him high credit in the 
North for his boldness in rebuking the pernicious views of many in his 
own State." After he found the whole Administration against him, he 
was driven by stress of necessity into the ranks of the party which he had 
previously opposed. 

The great and important fact to which the resolution of the House di- 
rected and confined the attention of the committee, and which is made 
perfectly clear by the evidence you do not refer to at all, but keep it care- 
fully out of sight from beginning to end of your statement. The question 
was and is, whether the Secretary of War under the Buchanan Adminis- 
tration did at any time subsequent to the first of January, 18(>0, treach- 
erously dispose of guns and munitions for the purpose of giving to the 
South the advantage in the war which the leaders in that section intended 
to make against the Federal Government. This was the "rumor, specula- 
tion, and misapprehension" to which the chairmanofthe committee alluded; 
this is substantially what the partisan newspapers and stump orators have 
asserted and reasserted over and over again, until thousands of persons 
in every part of the country have been made to believe it ; this is what 
you meant by your first article, and what you persist in and reaffirm by 
your last. Now examine the facts. There was a law almost coeval with 
the government for the distribution of arms among the different States 
according to their representation in Congress, for the use of their militia. 
Under this law the Ordnance Bureau, without any special order from the 
head of the department, gave to each State that applied for it her proper 
quota of muskets and rifles of the best pattern and make provided for the 
regular army. During the year 1860 the number of muskets so distri- 
buted was exactly 8423, of which the Southern States received 2091, 
while the Northern States got nearly three times that number, to wit, 
6332. Some long-range riftes of the army calibre were distributed. Tbe 
aggregate number amounted to 1728, and they all went to Northern 
States except 758, about half enough for one regiment, which were divi- 
ded between Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Mississippi, 
and Louisiana, the other States of the South receiving none. AVliy did 
you conceal these facts? You knew them, and you could not help but 
see their strict relevancy and great importance. Perhaps you did not 
know that the suppressio vert is as bad as the suggeslio falsi, and thought 
it fair to make out a criminal charge against a dead rebel by keeping back 
so much of the truth as did not suit your purpose. 

The fact that the Southern States neglected to take their proper and 
just quota, which they might have got for the asking, satisfied the com- 
mitteee, and no doubt fully convinced you, that there could have been no 
fraudulent combination in 1860 between them and the War Department 



52 MR. BLACK TO MR. WILSON". 

to rob the Government of its arms for their benefit. That concluded the 
vhole case, since it was impossible for a sane man to believe that such a 
plot could have been formed and acted upon at a previous time and yet 
had no existence in the year immediately preceding the war. Neverthe- 
less, the committee went back, and it was proved that in 1859, before any 
war was apprehended — before the election of Lincoln was dreamed of — 
before the division of the Democracy, which made his election possible 
with a million majority against him — Floyd ordered a transfer of 115,000 
muskets from Northern to Southern arsenals. Tliis you parade with a 
great flourish as evidence of a most wicked robbery. But here we find 
you again at the disingenuous business (is not that a soft phrase ?) of 
keeping back a truth which would have spoiled the face of your story. 
These arms were all worthless and unservicahle. We had 500,000 of them ; 
they cumbered the Norlhern arsenals, and could not be used ; a law had 
been passed to authorize the sale of them ; they were offered for years at 
two dollars and fifty cents apiece, about one-tenth the price of a good 
gun, and they could not be got off. Twice a considerable number were 
sold, but the purchasers upon further examination refused to take them. 
Of these 500,000 condemned muskets, the Secretary of War, in 1859, or- 
dered 115,000 to be sent to the South, doubtless for mere convenience of 
storage. To " weapon the rebellion" with arras like these would have in- 
sured its destruction the instant its forces came into the presence of troops 
having the improved modern gun in their hands. Floyd could not have 
done a greater injury to the Southern cause than this would have been. 
JSor is it possible to believe that Southern leaders would have conspired 
with him to purloin these useless arms in 1859, and then, in 1860, decline 
to take the share that legally belonged to them of the best muskets and 
rifles ever invented. All these facts appear in the evidence reported by 
the committee, from which you pretend to be making fair and candid ci- 
tations, and you say not a word about them. 

If you were " a mere lawyer," or any lawyer at all, and would go be- 
fore a judicial tribunal mutilating the truth after this fashion, you would 
immediately be expelled from the profession, and no judge would ever 
permit you to open your mouth in a court of justice again. If you would 
appear as a witness, and in that character testify to the contents of a writ- 
ten document in the way you have set out this report to your readers, it 
might be followed by very disagreeable consequences, which I will not 
shock your polite ears by mentioning. 

Mr. Cobb, while Secretary of the Treasury, performed his duties with 
singular purity, uprightness, and ability. No enemy has ever ventured to 
point out a single public act done in that department by him of which 
the wisdom, the lawfulness, or the honesty could be even doubted. The 
disjointed and loose accusation of your first paper imjilied that by some 
oflicial delinquency he had purposely disorganized the fiscal machinery of 
the Goveniuit'nt, or otherwise perpetrated some malicious mischief on the 
public credit. Now, however, you are reduced to the old and never-fail- 
ing resort of " treasonable utterances ;" something that he said in private 
conversation had the effect of injuring the credit of the United States. 
What was it? It is well known that the prices of all securities, public 
and private, began to go down immediately upon the Presidential election 
of l8Gv), and continued going down for years afterwards. Is this attribu- 
table to the treasonable utterances of Thomas, and Dix, and Chase ? But 
what is the use of pursuing such a sul)joet ? Mr. Cobb was dead, and you 



MR. BLACK TO MR. WILSON. 53 

felt a sort of necessity for doinp; some despite upon his grave. Tliis fee- 
ble absurdity was all you could do. 

I considered myself bound to defend Mr. Stanton against the praise 
which described his character as infamous. Down to the time of his apos- 
tacy we were close and intimate friends, and I thought I knew him as well 
as one man could be known to another. I do not claim that he owed me 
anything; for I made no sacrifices of myself or anybody else to serve him. 
I advanced him in his profession and thereby improved his fortune, but 
he got nothing in that way for which he did not render equivalent services. 
I strove long, and at last successfully, to remove the prejudice of Mr. 
Buchanan and others against him, because I thought them unjust, and be- 
cause it was inconvenient for me that the President should not trust a 
man in whom I had unlimited confidence. I recommended him pressingly 
for Postmaster-General upon the death of Mr. Brown, solely for the rea- 
son that the exigencies of the public service in that department required 
a man of his great ability and industry. I caused him to be appointed 
Attorney-General, because I knew (or thought I knew) that he and I 
were in perfect accord on all questions, whether of law or policy, which 
he might have to deal with, and because I was sure that he would handle 
them not only with fidelity but with consummate skill. But though he 
was not in my debt, the apparent warmth of his nature impelled him to 
express his gratitude in most exaggerated language. After he took office 
under the Lincoln Administration our paths diverged so widely that I did 
not often see him. When I did, he sometimes overwhelmed me, as before, 
with hyperbolical demonstrations of thankfulness and friendship. If his 
feelings ever changed, he "died and made no sign" that was visible to me. 

Here let nie record my solemn declaration, that I never saw anything 
dishonorable in his conduct while I was associated with him. He never 
disappointed me while he was employed under me, or while we were col- 
leagues in office; and he never failed me in anything which I had a right 
to expect at his hands. His enemies spoke evil of him, but that is "the 
rough brake that virtue must go through," and I allowed no tale-bearer 
to shake my faith. My own personal knowledge does not enable me to 
accuse him of any mean or disgraceful act. How far you have succeeded, 
or may hereafter be able to succeed, in proving him a treacherous hypo- 
crite, is a question to be considered. But I am not one of your wit- 
nesses ; my testimony, as far as it goes, is directly against you. 

Under these circumstances it was impossible for me to be quite silent 
when I saw your publication in the "Atlantic," or to confine myself to a 
mere vindication of the other parties assaulted. It was plain to me that 
you had " wholly misunderstood the character of Mr. Stanton, and 
grossly injured him by what you supposed to be a panygeric." Your 
description of him, if accepted as true, would compel the belief that his 
whole political life was one long imposture ; that as a trusted member of 
the Buchanan Administration, he acted alternately the incompatible parts 
of a spy and a bully ; that while he was the chief law officer of the Gov- 
ernment, he was engaged in the foulest conspiracy that ever was hatched 
against the life, liberty, and honor of a colleague for whom he was at 
that very time professing unbounded friendship ; that he was the pro- 
tec/e and crony of Simon Cameron, and appointed Secretary of War to 
carry out his policy ; that being so appointed, he did loyally and feloni- 
ously embezzle public money to the amount of two hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars at one time. It is true that you were actuated by no 
malicious intent. You meant to do him honor. According to your moral 



54 MR. BLACK TO MR. WILSON". 

apprehensions, all the evil you ascribed to him was good. When yoa 
wove for liim this disgusting "wreath of ulcers gone to seed," you thought 
you were decorating his coffin with a chaplet of the choicest flowers. 
You painted a monster of depravity, and you expected the American 
people to worship it with all the fervor of savages when they fall down 
to adore the image of some hideous demon. No doubt the votive offer- 
ing of your affection took this anomalous form because yon believed that 
duplicity and crime employed agaiust Democrats would give him the 
highest claim he could have on the admiration of the Abolitionists, and 
because it did greatly increase your own esteem and regard for him. But 
my interest in his reputation required that he should be properly appre- 
ciated by that honest portion of the people who still adhere to the moral 
creed of their fathers. 

I do not assert that your last paper proves nothing. I will give you 
the full benefit of every fact which you have established. So for as you 
have shown Mr. Stanton to be guilty of the baseness you impute to him, 
I will make no contest about it. But I will not yield one inch to any 
allegation of yours unsupported by evidence. I will try to save out of your 
hands as much of his character as you have not already destroyed by 
credible evidence. My effort was to take him down from the pillory to 
which you had nailed him by the ears as " a fix'd figure for scorn to 
point its finger at." You have done your strongest to oppose my rescue 
of him, and any partial success which may have rewarded your struggle 
must be a great comfort, of which I cannot justly deprive you. We will 
examine your evidence, and see upon what points you have made out 
your case, and wherein you have come short of your aim. 

I. You asserted that Mr. Stanton had been from his earliest youth an 
abolitionist in his secret heart; that to leading men of that party he 
declared himself in entire agreement with them, and hoped for the 
time to come when he could aid them. In other words, he gave in his 
perfect adhesion to them, concurred in their views of public morality, 
and was willing to promote their designs against the Federal and State 
governments whenever he could make himself most efficient to that end. 
At the same time he was in the Democratic party by virtue of his de- 
clared faith in exactly the opposite sentiments. To us he made himself 
appear a Democrat of the most ultra class. I do not say that he was an ac- 
tive propagandist ; but all Democrats with whom he spoke were impressed 
by the seeming strength of his attachment to those great principles, by the 
application of which they hoped to save the Union from dissolution, the 
country from civil war, and the liberties of the people from the destruc- 
tion with which your ascendancy threatened them. We took him on his 
word, believed him thoroughly, and gave him honor, office, and high 
trusts. Now, a man may be an honest Democrat or a sincere Abolitionist, 
but he cannot honestly and sincerely be both at the same time. Between 
those two parties the hostility was deadly. Each recognized the other 
as a mortal foe. They were as far asunder as the poles on every point 
of principle and policy. They differed not merely about rules for the 
interpretation of the organic law, but opposed each other on the broad 
question whether that law was entitled to any obedience at all. One of 
them respected and reverenced the Constitution as the best government 
the world ever saw, while the other denounced it as an agreement with 
death and a covenant with hell, which it was meritorious even for its 
sworn officers to violate. If we loved any portion of it more than an- 
other, it was that part which guurdt'd the iudi\ idual rights of the people 



MR. BLACK TO MR. WILSON. 55 

by habeas corpus, jury trial, and other great judicial institutions, which 
our ancestors on both sides of the Atlantic had shed so much of their 
blood to establish; and it was precisely those provisions which had your 
bitterest enmity, and which you made the first use of your power to abol- 
ish, trample down, and destroy. Mr. Stanton could not have been truly 
on more than one side of such a controversy ; he could not serve God 
and Mammon both ; he could not be for the Constitution and against it 
too ; he could not at once believe and disbelieve in the sanctity of an oath 
to support it. He professed most fervently to be heart and soul with us. 
If he also professed to be with you, he was a wretched hypocrite. If 
he kept up this fraudulent deceit for thirty years, and thereby got the 
highest places in the gift of both parties, he was " the most marvellous 
impostor that ever lived or died." 

When your first article appeared, I did not believe that you had any 
ground for this shocking imputation upon his character. 1 was compelled 
to disbelieve and contradict it, for reasons which were then given and 
need not now be repeated. But I said the testimony of the Chief Jus- 
tice would silence my denial. The Chief Justice has spoken out and 
sustained your assertion. You do prove by him a declaration from the 
lips of Mr. Stanton, made nearly thirty years ago, from which the infer- 
ence is a fair one that he was in the Democratic party with intent " to 
betray the Constitution and its friends into the cruel clutches of their 
enemies" whenever he could find an opportunity. 

But you are not satisfied with this. To make the brand ineffaceable, 
you show that several years after his declaration to Mr. Chase, he, being 
an avowed advocate and champion of Democratic principles, was either 
appointed by his political brethren, or else volunteered, to answer an 
abolition lecture delivered at Steubenville by a man named Weld. He 
disappointed all parties, including the lecturer himself, by declining to 
come forward, though very pointedly called for. He made no excuse 
at the time for deserting the cause he had undertaken, but afterwards he 
slipped round secretly and alone to the private room of the lecturer and 
gave himself in as a convert. " I meant," said he, " to fight you, but 
my guns are spiked, and I came to say that I now see with you," &c. 
It never struck Mr. Weld that there was anything sneaking or shabby 
about this transaction. With the obliquity of vision peculiar to his 
political sect, he saw nothing but " hearty frankness, independence, 
moral insight, and keen mental force" in the conduct of a man who pri- 
vately denounced the opinions and principles which he publicly supported; 
and twenty-five years afterwards Mi*. Weld piously thanks God on paper 
for such an artful dodger to serve as a leader of his party. 

The next place you find him after the Steubenville affair is in the van 
of the Ohio Democracy. They, too, believed in the " hearty frankness 
and independence" of the declaration he made to them. They showed 
their faith by their works ; the Legislature, by a strict party vote, elected 
him Law Reporter, an office which he sought eagerly, and received with 
many thanks. 

In all the conflicts of the Buchanan Administration with the abolition- 
ists and their allies, he was an open-mouthed opponent of the latter. He 
was always sound on the Kansas question, and faithful among the faith- 
less on the Lecompton Constitution. So far as we, his Democratic asso- 
ciates, were permitted to know him, no man detested more than he did 
the knavish trick of the abolitionists in preventing a vote on slavery, by 
which it would have been expelled from Kansas, and the whole trouble 



56 MR, BLACK TO MR. WILSON. 

settled in the way they pretended to wish. He was out and out for 
Breckinridge in 1860, and regarded the salvation of the country as hang- 
ing on the forlorn hope of his election. To Mr. Buchanan himself, and 
to the members of his Cabinet, he paid the most assiduous court, was 
always ready for an occasion to serve them, and showed bis devotion in 
ways which sometimes went rather too close to the verge of obsequious- 
ness. 

While we were looking at this side of his character, and supposing it 
had no other, he was, according to your understanding of his history, in 
" entire agreement" with the deadly enemies of every principle we be- 
lieved in. 

The mere fact that he paid visits to Dr. Bailey is nothing. It is 
nothing that he there met abolition people. All that might happen, 
and his fidelity to the Constitution would moult no feather. But you 
mention it as a remarkable circumstance, and it was remarkable, because 
abolitionists exclusively were in the habit of assembling there to talk 
over their plans, to concoct their slanders against the Administration, 
and to lay their plots for the overthrow of the Government and laws. 
It was a place were men congregated for political, not merely for social 
purposes, and Mr. Stanton knew he would be de Irop unless he was one 
of them. He accordingly made himself not only acceptable, but interest- 
ing, by telling them that he was of Quaker blood, and got his abolition- 
ism by inheritance ; his grandfather liberated his slaves — he did — and 
purged the family of that sin ; and Benjamin Lunday took him on his 
knee when he was a little boy and taught him the political doctrine which 
he had never forgotten, but which he had opposed by every open act of 
his life. He was probably fresh from one of these symposia when he 
went into court in the Sickles case, and loudly bragged that he was the 
son of slave-holding parents; his father was a North Carolinian, and his 
mother a Virginian. You may see that part of his speech on page 51 of 
the printed trial. It is hard to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, 
but Stanton seems to have mastered the difficulty. 

Mr. Sumner's testimony to the early and thorough-going abolitionism 
of Mr. Stanton is entitled to great weight, because it is coupled with an 
act which attests its entire sincerity. It is a part of his certificate that 
when Mr. Stanton's nomination as Secretary of War was sent to the 
Senate, he (Sumner) immediately rose to urge the confirmation, stated 
hi.s acquaintance with the nominee, and said emphatically, " Within my 
knowledge, he is one of us." Mr. Sumner certainly would not have 
made such a declaration at such a time, and for such a purpose, unless he 
had the clearest conviction, based upon personal knowledge, that Mr. 
Stanton was an abolitionist of the most virulent type, prepared to tread 
the Constitution and the statute book under his feet, and ready to go all 
lengths for the subversion of liberty and justice. 

There is another fact corroborating your view, which you have not 
mentioned, but of which you are fairly entitled to the benefit. When Mr. 
Stanton went into the War Department, he immediately began to act 
with reckless disregard of his sworn duty. He surrounded himself with 
the most loathsome miscreants, and used them for the foulest purposes. 
Law, justice, and humanity were utterly outraged. Those who knew him 
as I did, and had heard him curse the perpetrators of such crimes only a 
month or two before, exercised the charity which believeth all things, and 
concluded that he was moved by some headlong impulse which had sud- 
denly revolutionized all this thoughts, feelings, and principles of action. 



MR. BLACK TO MR. WILSON. 57 

But yonr proofs show that in the kindness of onr construction we did not 
give heed enough to the maxim, Nemo repente fuit turpissimus. Such a 
depth could not be reached by a single plunge. Tbe integrity of his 
moral nature must have previously undergone that gradual process of de- 
composition which could result only from long and sympathetic associa- 
tion with the enemies of the Constitution. 

On the whole, it must be admitted that you have made out this part of 
your case. With Democrats he was a Democrat, enjoying their confidence 
and taking their favors, while he caused it to be well understood among 
" men of your school in morals and politics" that his devotion to the De- 
mocracy was entirely simulated. It is now also clear, beyond doubt, that 
to Southern men he avowed himself a full-blooded secessionist. The 
testimony of Governor Brown to that eflect is as good as any that you 
have produced to prove him an abolitionist, and you have made the fact 
so probable in itself that very slight proof would be sufficient to esta- 
blish it. 

Is not my conclusion a fair one from the premises that this is the most 
" marvellous" imposture upon record ? Does the history of the world hold 
on all its pages of wonders another case in which a man has raised him- 
self to the highest public employments under two different parties of dia- 
metrically opposite and hostile principles, by making simultaneous pro- 
fessions of fidelity to both of them ? Do not mention Sunderland, for 
his hypocrisy gained him nothing ; nor Talleyrand, for he was merely a 
trimmer ; nor Benedict Arnold, for he acted his double part only during 
a few months, and closed it with ignominious failure. To find a parallel, 
you must go to another scene of action, and a far lower line of life. Jona- 
than Wild for twenty years imposed himself on the London police as an 
honest man and a most zealous friend of Justice, pretended to assist the 
officers in their business, and shared richly in their rewards ; but during 
all that time he was the adviser, the "guide, philosopher, and friend" of 
the principal thieves in the city, and to them he constantly betrayed the 
measures taken by the public authorities for the preservation of order 
and law. 

II. We are directly at issue upon the question whether or not Mr. 
Stanton advised President Buchanan, before his appointment as Attorney- 
General, that war might be legally made against the States, and th.e peo- 
ple thereof, in which ordinances of secession had been passed, by way of 
coercing them to remain in the Union. You say he was sent for by the 
President, and gave him that advice, accompanied by an argument in 
writing, which was so convincing that it was inserted in the first draft of 
the message, but afterwards stricken out. No such paper being in ex- 
istence, and Mr. Buchanan as well as Mr. Stanton being dead, your alle- 
gation is easily made ; if it be true, it is hard to prove, and though false, 
it is harder still to disprove. The evidence you produce is Mr. Dawes's 
statement that Mr. Stanton told him so. I say nothing about the danger 
of relying on the accuracy of a conversation reproduced from mere recol- 
lection, after so long a time ; but I answer that it is not true for the fol- 
lowing reasons : — 

1. Mr. Buchanan made it a rule never to seek advice from outsiders on 
legal questions. When he was in doubt, he took the opinions of those 
who were officially responsible for their correctness. He had no kitchen 
cabinet. 

2. If he had made this an exceptional case, and taken Mr. Stanton 
into his counsels by the back stairs, and if Mr. Stanton had furnished him 



58 MR. BLACK TO MR. WILSON. 

with a paper which produced conviction on his mind that all his consti- 
tutional advisers were wrong, he would most certainly have shown it to 
them, or told them of it. 

8. Mr. Stanton was a lawyer of undoubted ability, and the absurd 
opinion which you attribute to him could not have found a lodgment in 
his mind, even for one moment. 

4. If he had really entertained such a notion, and desired in good faith 
to impress it upon the Administration, he would not (I think he could not) 
have concealed it from me. It would have been contrary to the whole 
tenor of his behavior in those days, and what is more, very much against 
his own interests. 

5. He did e.'^press views exactly the opposite of those which you say 
he urged upon the President. He endorsed the opinion which I gave 
on the 20th of Xoveraber, 1860, in extravagd^it terras of approbation, 
adhered steadily to the doctrines of the annual message, and when re- 
quired officially to pronounce upon the special message of January, 1861, 
he gave his concurrence heartily, strongly, and unequivocally. In all the 
discussions upon the subject, he did not once intimate that there was, or 
ever had been, the slightest difference between him and the other mem- 
bers of the Administration. Do you mean to say that this was mere 
sham ? Was he so utterly devoid of all sincerity, honor, and truth, that 
he gave the whole weight of his influence and power to the support of a 
doctrine which he believed to be not only false, but pernicious ? If he 
was such a knave as that, then tell me what reliance can be placed on any 
statement he may have made to Mr. Dawes. 

III. Did he betray the Buchanan Administration while he was a mem- 
ber of it? Was he false to the principles that he pretended to believe 
in ? Was he treacherously engaged with you in trying to defeat the mea- 
sures he was trusted to support? Did he aid, and strengthen, and assist 
you in your efiforts to blacken the reputation of his associates and friends? 
Before these questions are answered, let us look for a moment at the situ- 
ation we were in. 

Mr. Buchanan was compassed round on all sides with more difficulties 
and dangers than any other public man in this country ever encountered. 
The party which elected him was perfectly routed ; its force wasted by 
division, its heart broken by defeat. Every Northern State was in the 
hands of enemies, flushed with the insolence of newly acquired power ; 
and after his official condemnation of secession, the South fell away from 
his side in a body. With bitter, remorseless, unrelenting foes in front, 
and flank, and rear, he was literally unsupported by any political organi- 
zation capable of making itself felt. But he was " shielded, and helmed, 
and weaponed with the truth," and he went right onward in the path 
made sacred by the footsteps of his great predecessors. He declared the 
secession ordinances mere nullities; the Union was not for a day, but for 
all time ; a State could not interpose itself between the Federal Govern- 
ment and individual citizens who violated Federal laws ; the coercive 
power did not apply to a State, and could not be used for purposes of 
indiscriminate carnage in wl'.ich the innocent and the guilty would be 
mingled together; but the laws must be executed, and the just rights of 
the Federal Government maintained in every part of the country against 
all opposers. The whole theory of the Constitution, as expounded by 
the men that made it, and all their successors down to that time, justice, 
humanity, patriotism, honor, and conscience, required him to announce 
and maintain these principles. They were not only true, but were either 



MR. BLACK TO MR, WILSON. 59 

expressly or impliedly admitted to be true by all except the open avowed 
enemiesof the Union. The secessionists, of course, hud trained them- 
selves to a different way of thinking, and they immediately assumed an 
attitude of pronounced hostility to the Administration. The foremost 
of the abolition orators and the leading newspaper organ of the so-called 
Republican party took the high ground that the Southern States had 
a right to break up the Union if they pleased, and could not justly be 
opposed. But though they "drew much people after them," and gave 
great encouragement to the insurrectionary moveriient, no man who was 
at once honest, intelligent, and true to the country, failed to see the wis- 
dom of the President's views. The President elect endorsed them fully 
on his way to the capital, as he did afterwards by his official action. 
From all quarters addresses and petitions came up, which showed the 
popular appreciation of thera. Even the Massachusetts Legislature, 
without one dissenting voice in its more numerous branch, and by an 
overwhelming majority in the other House, passed a solemn resolution 
approving them in the strongest language, and offering to aid in carrying 
them out. But everything depended on Congress ; and what did Con- 
gress do ? Both Houses were completely in the hands of shallow par- 
tisans, who were either too stupid to understand their duty, or too dis- 
honest to perform it. The men of most ability and integrity whom 
Republican constituents had sent there — such men, for instance, as Charles 
Francis Adams— were heard but not heeded. The President, thoroughly 
informed on the whole subject, communicated all the facts in a special 
message, told Congress that the powers confided to him were wholly in- 
adequate to the occasion, demonstrated the absolute necessity of further 
legislation, and implored them not to postpone it, for the danger, immi- 
nent then, was increasing with every moment of delay. To all this they 
were as deaf as adders. They could be reached by no appeal to their 
hearts or consciences. They neither adopted the executive recommenda- 
tion, nor gave a reason for refusing. If any measure, having the least 
tendency either to restore peace or prepare for war, got so far as to be 
proposed, it was uniformly referred to a committee, where it was sure to 
be quietly strangled. The issues of life and death to the nation hung 
upon their action, and they would not lift a finger to save it. No legis- 
lative body, since the beginning of the world, ever behaved in a great 
crisis with such scandalous disregard of its duty. 

But if there were no statesmen among the managers of that Congress, 
there were plenty of demagogues ; if they were indifferent to the fate of 
the nation, they were intensely alive to the interests of their faction ; if 
the regular committees slept supinely on the great public questions sub- 
mitted to them, the secret committee, spawned by a caucus, went prowl- 
ing about with activity as incessant as it was stealthy and malignant. 
You could not gainsay the views which the Administration took of their 
own duty or yours, nor deny the wisdom of the recommendations they 
made ; but you could, and did, answer thera with a storm of personal 
i detraction. The air was filled with falsehood ; the atmosphere was satu- 
I rated with slander; the voice of truth was drowned in "the loud roar of 
foaming calumny," This crusade was conducted with so much vigor and 
success that some members of the Administration were pursued into 
private life by the rage of the partisan mob, and thousands of the wor- 
thiest men in the land were actually imprisoned and persecuted almost to 
death, for nothing worse than expressing a friendly opinion of them. The 
messages of the President will stand forever a monument to the wisdom, 



60 MR. BLACK TO MR. WILSON. 

foresight, and honest i>atriotisin of the executive Administration, while 
history will proclaim tliroujrh all time the dishonor of that Congress 
which could answer such appeals with nothing but vituperation and 
insult. 

It was at such a juncture that Mr. Stanton was appointed to take a 
high and most confidential place in the Administration. His language 
glowed with gratitude, his words spoke all the fervor of personal devo- 
tion to his chief and his colleagues; he gave his thorough approval to the 
measures which they thought necessary to preserve the unity of the na- 
tion in the bonds of peace. Yet you inform us that he did immediately 
put himself in communication with the opposition ; sought out you and 
others whom he had never known before, and sought you solely because 
you were enemies of the Administration; offered himself as your spy, 
and did act for you in the capacity of a false delator; went skulking 
about at midnight to aid you in defeating the measures which with us he 
pretended to support; forgathered with your secret committee, and gave 
you assistance in carrying on your personal warfare against his benefac- 
tors ; nay, worse than all that, he helped you to trump up a charge of 
treason against one of his colleagues — a charge which he knew to \)e 
false — a charge for which, if it had been true, that trusting friend might 
lawfully, and would deservedly, have been hanged by the neck till he was 
dead. Oh I it was too foul ; it was base beyond the lowest reach of 
comparison. If your story be unfounded — if Stanton after all was a true 
and honorable man — how will you answer in the judgment day for this 
horrible outrage on his memory and on the feelings of his friends ? 

If thou dost slander him and torture us, 
Never pray more ; abandon all remorse ; 
On horror's head horrors accumulate ; 
For nothing canst thou to damnation add 
Deeper than that. 

But let justice be done though the heavens should fall. Some, at least, 
of your statements are true, unless Mr. Dawes, Mr. Howard, Mr. Seward, 
and Mr. Sumner have volunteered to help you by sacrificing the charac- 
ter of " the great Secretary." 

I will not waste time upon the details which your witnesses have given 
of his treachery. It appears to have been a free-will offering of his own, 
induced by no solicitation of yours, but tendered by himself ex mero motit. 
The moment he was inducted into office he looked about to ascertain who 
were the bitterest and most malignant enemies of the men to whom he 
owed all his public importance and much of his private prosperity. He 
found them quickly, and though they were entire strangers to him, he put 
himself immediately into secret communication with them, took service 
under them as their regular spy, and exercised himself diligently in that 
base vocation, making reports to them daily, and sometimes twice a day, 
until the close of his official term, when his occupation necessarily ceased. 
This mean employment must have taken up most of the time which should 
have been devoted to the duties of an office on which the public busi- 
ness, always heavy, was then pressing with unusual weight. 

He did not communicate any knowledge which was necessary to guide 
you in the discharge of your duties, for every fact of that kind was as 
accessible to you as to him ; the Administration kept nothing back ; the 
President volunteered to give all he knew concerning the state of the 
Union ; no department was closed against your investigations ; every call 
fur informatiou was promptly and fully answered. If that had not been 



MR. BLACK TO MR. WILSON. 61 

enough, every member of the Cabinet would have been perfectly free 
to speak with any member of Congress, or to go in person before any 
committee. Mr. Seward did confer with me fully at the State Depart- 
ment in open daylight, without any dodging about it; and he was always 
welcome, as he is now, to tell everything that passed, for he neither asked 
nor could have asked any question, if the country had an interest in it, 
which I was not willing to answer. With all the channels of truthful in- 
formation thus open and unobstructed, you preferred to get what you 
wanted from a spy. Mr. Howard has the cheek to proclaim that during 
the " labors" of his committee, instead of acting upon honest and legitimate 
evidence, he sent inquiries to this secret informer, who answered by giv- 
ing information of " great importance," but his communications " were 
always indirect and anonymous !" 

If there be one sentence in your whole article which is marked more 
than another with your characteristic hardihood of assertion, it is that in 
which you try to make a merit of Stanton's treachery. It is curiously reck- 
less, and for that reason worth giving in your very words, " These facts," 
gay you, " were stated to illustrate Mr. Stanton's exalted patriotism, which 
prompted him to rise above the claims and clamors of partisanship, and 
to invoke the aid of loyal men beyond the lines of his own party, and 07it- 
side of the Administration of which he was a member to serve his imper- 
illed country, menaced with a foul and wicked revolt." AVhy, this is pre- 
cisely what the President and all the honest men of his Cabinet were do- 
ing openly and above board. They had no legal power which could avail 
to serve the "imperilled country" without the co-operation of Congress, 
which was wholly ruled by the opposition. They invoked "the aid of 
loyal men beyond the lines of their own party and outside of the Admin- 
istration," because it was from thence only that aid could come. But 
with you and your associates the " claims and clamors of partnership" 
were so much higher than considerations of public duty, that you not 
only refused all aid to the country, but you insulted, and abused, and vili- 
fied the President and his friends for asking it. Was Stanton, like the other 
members of the Administration, invoking aid for the imperilled country ? 
Did he skulk about in secret to effect in that way what his brethren were 
trying to accomplish by an open appeal to the reason and conscience of 
their political opponents ? If so, how did he succeed ? Did his secret, 
anonymous, and indirect communications ever produce the slightest symp- 
tom of patriotic emotion in the minds of those who received them ? What 
did you, or Mr. Sumner, or Mr. Dawes, or Mr. Howard, or Mr. Seward, 
do to avert the great calamity of civil war ? What measures did any of 
you bring forward to serve the country ? In that hour of peril what man 
among you acted like a man ? Which of you " rose to the height of that 
great argument, or showed himself fit in mind or heart to meet the re- 
sponsibilities of the time ? The Union was indeed " menaced with a foul 
and wicked revolt," and all you did was to " let the Union slide." The 
public danger excited no anxiety in your minds; public affairs received 
no attention at your hands ; but you were all the while mousing about 
after some personal calumny by which you hoped to stir up the popular 
passions against the true friends of the country; and Stanton, unless you 
slander him, made love to the imfamous business of helping you. 

You have given us but small samples of the " indirect and anomymous 
communications" which Stanton made to you and your associates. The 
bulk of them must be enormous. He was engaged for two or three 
months fabricating at least one tale every day for Mr. Seward, and another 



62 ME. BLACK TO JIR. WILSON". 

consisting of " the most startling facts" to. suit the needs of Mr. Howard, 
while you and Mr. Dawes were gratified in a similar way at the same time. 
Are these "startling facts" held back for some other funeral occasion ? 
Take notice yourself, and tell your friends, that while their stories are hid 
away from the light, the presumption that they are not only false, but 
known to be false, is growing stronger and stronger every day. You had 
better open your budgets at once. 

There is a point or two here on which I would like to draw you out. 
Mr. Seward says that he and Mr. Stanton discussed and settled measures. 
The topic which absorbed the attention of all minds at that time was 
Fort Sumter. Compared to that, all others were insignificant ; and of 
course the measures relating to it were not overlooked. It is known, from 
the published statements of Mr. Welles, Judge Campbell, and others, that 
Mr. Seward was deeply engaged in a plot to surrender that fort, which 
plot he afterwards brought to a head, and by sundry tricks nearly made 
it successful. Stanton professed to agree with us that the fort ought to 
be kept; but you have shown that his professions in the Cabinet were not 
very reliable, and Governor Brown has proved that he could be a seces- 
sionist as well as anything else, if occasion required it. Now, what did they 
settle upon about Fort Sumter ? They were engaged in something which 
both knew to be disreputable if not criminal ; their secrecy, their employ- 
ment of a medium, their quick dodge when they met on the street, the 
mortal terror of detection which they manifested throughout, all show 
plainly enough that they had no honest object. Tell us if they were con- 
triving a plan to put the strongest military fortress of the Government 
into the hands of its enemies. 

The midnight meeting between Messrs. Sumner and Stanton is in all 
its aspects the most astounding of historical revelations. If you recall 
Mr. Sumner to the stand, it is hoped that he will see the uecessity of be- 
ing much more explicit than he has yet been. From what he has said, it 
appears that Stanton " described to him the determination of the South- 
ern leaders, and developed particularly their plan to get possession of the 
national capital and the national archives, so that they might substitute 
themselves for the existing Government." This is so extremely interest- 
ing that it would be a sin against the public not to examine it further. 

Early in the winter somebody started the sensational rumor that on or 
before the 4th of March a riot would be got up in Washington, which 
might seriously endanger the peace of the city. It was discussed and 
talked about, and blown upon in various ways, but no tangible evidence 
of its reality could ever be found. The President referred to it in a 
message to Congress, and said he did not share in such apprehensions ; 
but he pledged himself in any event to preserve the peace. When the 
midnight meeting took place, the rumor had lived its life out — had paid 
its breath to time, and the mortal custom of such things at Washington ; 
it was a dead canard which had ceased to alarm even women or children. 
This was certainly not the subject of the communication made that night 
at one o'clock. Stanton did not surround himself with all the adjuncts 
of secrecy, darkness, and terror, to tell an old story which had been in 
everybody's mouth for weeks before, of an impossible street riot by the 
populace of Washington. What he imparted was a secret not only new, 
but deep and dangerous, fit for the occasion, and worthy to be whispered 
confidentially at midnight. He disclosed a ''plan of the Southern leaders 
to get possession of the capital and the archives, and to suhstilnte them- 
selves for the existing Government.''^ It was a coup d'etat of the first mag- 



MR. BLACK TO MR. WILSON. 63 

nitude — a most stupendous treason. This plan Mr. Stanton " developed 
particularly,'''' that is to say, gave all the details at length. Mr. Sumner 
manifestly believed what he heard ; he received the revelation into his 
heart with perfect faith ; and he did not underestimate the public danger ; 
but he did nothing to defeat the treason, or even to expose it. He was 
thoroughly and minutely informed of a plan prepared by Southern lead- 
ers to revolutionize the Government, and he kept their counsel as faith- 
fully as if he had been one of themselves. He took Stanton's frightful 
communication as quietly as he took the President's message. Nothing 
could stir his sluggish loyalty to any act which might tend to save his 
" imperilled country." 

Mr. Sumuer says that when Mr. Stanton made these statements to him 
he was struck " by the knowledge he showed of hostile movements y That 
is precisely what strikes me also with wonder and amazement, ^here in 
the world did he learn " the determination of the Southern leaders " ? 
Where did he get an account of the intended coup d'etat so detailed that 
he was able to develop it particularly? This knowledge becomes astound- 
ing when we recollect that, so far as now appears, nobody else outside of 
the " Southern leaders" had the least inkling of it. It is possible that 
his connection with the secessionists, and his professed devotion to their 
cause, went so far that they took him into their confidence, and told him 
what " hostile movements" they intended to make on the Government ? 
How did he get these secrets if not from them ? Or must we be driven • 
at last to the conclusion that the whole thing was a mere invention, im- 
posed on Mr. Sumner to delude him ? 

But Mr. Sumner owes it to the truth to make a fuller statement. Let 
us have the particulars which Mr. Stanton developed to him. We have 
a right to know not only who were the Southern traitors engaged in this 
plan, but who were confederated with them in Washington. I suppose 
Mr. Sumner, as well as Mr. Stanton, had "instinctive insight into men 
and things" enough to know that no government was ever substituted for 
another by a sudden movement, without some co-operation or connivance 
of ofiQcers in possession. Who among Stanton's colleagues did he say 
was engaged in this affair ? Did he charge the President with any con- 
cern in it ? If he declared all or any of them to be innocent, does not 
Mr. Sumner see the injustice of keeping back the truth ? Did Stanton 
tell him that he had communicated the facts to the President and Cabinet? 
If no, did he give a reason for withholding them ? And what was the 
reason ? JVas the guilty secret confined to his own breast, or did any 
other member of the Administration share his knowledge of it ? If yes, 
who ? Mr. Sumner has struck so rich a vein of historical fact (or fiction), 
that he is bound to give it some further exploitation. 

The following passage in Mr. Sumner's letter to you excites the live- 
liest desire for more information. After describing his visit to the At- 
torney-General's office, and Mr. Stanton's reception of him, he goes on 
thus : " He began an earnest conversation, saying he must see me alone — 
that this was impossible at his office — that he was watched by the traitors 
of the South — that my visit would be made known to them at once; and 
he concluded by proposing to call on me at my lodgings at one o'clock 
that night," etc. etc. Why was Mr. Stanton afraid of the Southern 
traitors? Why did they set a special watch over him ? No other mem- 
ber of the Administration was tormented with a fear like that. All of 
Mr. Stanton's colleagues felt at perfect liberty to speak out their oppo- 
sition to the hostile movements of the South, and they all did it without 



64 MR. BLACK TO ilR. WILSON. 

concealment or hesitation. But Stanton was put by the Southern 
traitors under a surveillance so strict, that he could not speak with a 
Senator except at midnight, by stealth, and in secrecy. At his own 
ofiBce it was impossible to see such visitors ; the Southern eye was 
always on him. How did those traitors of the South manage to 
control /<j'/n as they controlled nobody else? By what means did they 
" cow his better part of man," and master all his movements ? What 
did they do, or threaten to do, which made him their slave to such a 
fearful e.xtent ? His relations with them must have been very peculiar. 
The suspicion is not easily resisted that he had his nocturnal meetings 
with Southern men also, and that he feared simply the discovery of his 
double dealing. This is what we must believe if we suppose that he 
really was shaken by unmanly terrors. But I confess my theory to be, 
that he did not feel them, and that he made a pretence of them only that 
he might fool Mr. Sumner to the top of his bent. What does Mr. 
iSumuer himself think ? Was he, or was he not, the victim of a cruel 
humbug ? 

IV. Did Mr. Stanton conspire with the political enemies of the 
Administration to arrest Mr. Toucey on a false charge of treason ? That 
such a conspiracy existed seems to be a fact established. What you say 
about it shows that you knew and approved it. Mr. Dawes and Mr. 
Howard were in it, and no doubt many others who have not confessed it 
themselves, or been named by yoa. But Mr. Stanton was not with yon. 
The evidence of his complicity which you produce is altogether too in- 
definite, indirect, and obscure to convict him of so damning a crime. The 
enormous atrocity of the oflfence makes it impossiljle to believe in bis 
guilt without the clearest and most indubitable proof. 

Stanton and Toucey were at that time acting together in perfect 
harmony, closely united in support of the same general measures and 
principles. Toucey, at all events, was sincere ; and Stanton knew him 
to be a just, upright, and honorable man, whose fidelity to the Union, 
the Constitution, and the laws was as firm as the foundation of the 
everlasting hills. To Toucey himself, and to his friends, he never ex- 
pressed any sentiment but esteem and respect, and he declared his con- 
fidence in him even to Mr. Seward, who was his enemy, as you yourself 
have taken the pains to prove. Was the destruction of this man one of 
the purposes for which the first law ofiBcer of the Government sneaked 
about among your secret committees, met the plotters in their midnight 
lurking-places, employed a go-between to fetch and carry his clandestine 
messages, and, like a treacherous informer, wrote accusations which he 
trusted even to the hands of his confederates only while they were read 
in the light of a street lamp. 

There were two distinct and separate ways in which the conspirators 
could effect their designs upon the man whom they had marked out for 
their victim. One was to take him into custody under a legal warrant, 
regularly issued by a competent judicial officer. But to get such a 
warrant it was absolutely necessary that somebody should perjure himself, 
by swearing that Toucey had levied war against the United Stales. Was 
Stanton to make this false oath, in addition to the other proofs which he 
gave of his loyal ity ? Or was it expected that Peter H. Watson, who 
carried the charges, would swear to them also? If you did not rely on 
Stanton or Watson, was it you, or Mr. Dawes, or Mr. Howard — which 
of you — that meant to do the needful thing ? Or was it intended that 
all three of you should entwine your consciences in the tender embrace 



MR. BLACK TO ME. "VTILSOX. 65 

of a joint affidavit ? Or had yon looked out for some common " man of 
Belial," who was ready to be saborned for the occasion ? No, no ; you 
may have been eager to feed fat the ancient gradge yon bore against 
Toucey for being a Democrat and a "Union-saver," but none of yon 
woold have sicom that he was guilty of any criminal offence. Nor could 
Stanton or Watson have been persuaded to encounter such peril of soul 
and body. Xor could you, if you had tried your best, have found any 
other person to make the accusation in the' form of a legal oath. The 
price of perjury was not then high enough in the Washington market to 
draw out from their hiding-places that swarm of godless wretches who 
afterward swore away the lives of men and women with such fearful 
alacrity. 

From all this it is very clear that there was to be no swearing in the 
case, consequently no judicial warrant, and no lawful arrest. But Toucey 
v:as to be arrested. How ? Of course in the only other way it could pos- 
sibly be done. The conspirators intended to kidnap him. Mr. Dawes says 
that from the hour when the paper directing the arrest was read, under 
the street lamp, and " went back to its hiding-place,'' the Secretary was 
watched. The members of the cofnmittee, or the hirelings they em- 
ployed, dogged his footsteps, and were ready to spring upon him when- 
ever they got the signal. They could rush out as he passed the mouth 
of a dark alley, knock him down with their bludgeons, and drag him off. 
Or the lawless and " patriotic'' gang might burglariously break into his 
house in the night time, and, impelled, as yon would say, by " high and 
holy motives," take him by the throat and carry him away. After pro- 
ceeding thas far, it would be necessary to dispose of him in some private 
dungeon (for you knew that the public prisons and forts could not then 
be prostituted to such base uses), where no friend could find him, and 
whence no complaint of his could reach the open air. Even in that 
case, "with all appliances and means to boot," his speedy liberation 
would be extremely probable, and the condign punishment of the male- 
factors almost certain, unless they acted upon the prudent maxim that 
"dead men tell no tales." The combination of Booth and others to 
kidnap Mr. Lincoln was precisely like this in its original object ; and it 
was pursued step by step, until it ended in a most brutal murder. Facilis 
descensus Averni. 

Was this a becoming business for Senators and Representatives to be 
engaged in ? In that " hour of national agony," when hideous destruc- 
tion stared the country in the face ; when stout men held their breath in 
anxious dread ; when the cry for relief came up to Congress on the wings 
of every wind ; when the warning words of the President told you that 
the public safety required your instant attention — was that a time to be 
spent in prosecuting plots like this ? I will not ask you to repent of 
the wickedness ; it is not wrong in your eyes ; it comes up to your best 
ideas of loyalty, patriotism, and high statesmanship. Your witnesses 
think of it as you do ; they take pride and pleasure in their guilt, and 
wrap this garment of infamy about them with as much complacency as if 
it were a robe of imperial purple. 

But was Stanton in it ? Was the Attorney-General art and part in a 
foul conspiracy to kidnap the Secretary of tlie Xavy, "his own familiar 
friend, his brother who trusted in him, and with whom he ate bread V* 
If he had sent the paper which was read under the street lamp, why do 
you not produce it, or at least show by secondary evidence that it was 
in his handwritinsT? If Mr. Watson was the medium throush whom he 



6Q MR. BLACK TO MR. WILSOX. 

commnnicated his verbal directions to the committee or other persons 
confederated with him, why does not Mr. Watson appear and say so ? 
To fasten this great guilt on Stanton will require evidence far better 
than Mr. Howard's small and silly talk about "a bird which flew directly 
from some Cabinet minister," and stronger than his ^e//c/ founded on the 
fact that Stanton was a " suspicious character," especially as Mr. Howard 
admits his own participation in the crime, and is therefore something more 
than a " suspicious character" himself. But it is not merely the defects in 
the proof — it is the incredible nature of the story which counts against you. 
Stanton knew, if you did not, that the contemplated crime could not be 
perpetrated with impunity. Toucey breathed the deep breath and slept 
the sound sleep of a freeman under the guardianship of a law which 
Stanton at that time did not dare to violate. A Democratic Administra- 
tion still kept ward and watch over the liberty of the citizen. A vulgar 
tyranny which allowed abolitionists to do such things upon their political 
opponents was coming, but it had not come ; the reign of the ruffian 
and kidnapper was drawing near, but it had not arrived ; the golden 
age of the spy and the false accuser was beginning to dawn, but it had 
not yet risen. 

You may think it some excuse for this false charge against Mr. Stanton 
that it is not much worse than others which you have proved to be true. 
But justice requires that even bad men shall suffer only for those misdeeds 
which they have actually done. One of the greatest among American 
jurists held a slander to be aggravated by proof that the victim's character 
was bad before ; just as a corporal injury to a sick man or a cripple is a 
worse wrong than it would be to one of sound limbs and vigorous health. 

V. Mr. Stanton's personal behavior and bearing in the Cabinet have 
been much misrepresented by others besides you. I am told that Mr. 
Seward described the supposed "scene" in some speech, which I have 
never read. It was given at length, and very circumstantially, in a Lon- 
don paper, over the signature of T. W, ; Mr. Attorney-General Hoar, 
in a solemn oration which he pronounced before the Supreme Court last 
January, repeated it with sundry rhetorical embellishments ; nearly all the 
newspapers of your party have garnished their pointless abuse of the Bu- 
chanan Administration with allusions to it more or less extended ; and 
no doubt the book-makers in the service of the abolitionists have put it 
into what you call "contemporaneous history." So far as I have seen 
them, all these accounts differ from one another, and none is exactly, or 
even very nearly, like yours. But they agree in presenting a general 
picture of Mr. Stanton as engaged in some violent conflict which his col- 
leagues were too dull, too unprincipled, or too timid to undertake, though 
some of them afterward plucked up heart enough to follow his lead. They 
declare that Stanton took the most perilous responsibilities, boldly faced 
the most frightful dangers, and with heroic courage fought a desperate 
fight against the most fearful odds ; that the other members of the Cabi- 
uet looked on at the awful combat as mere spectators of his terrific valor, 
while the President was so frightened by the "fierce and fiery" encounter 
that all he could do was to "tremble and turn pale." 

All this is (to use Stanton's own language) "a tis.sue of lies ;" a mere 
cock and bull story ; a naked invention, purely fabulous ; a falsehood as 
gross and groundless as any in the autobiography of Baron Munchausen. 
Mr. Stanton was never exposed to any danger whatever while he was a 
member of that Cabinet ; never had any occasion to exhibit his courage : 
never quarrelled with any of his colleagues ; never denounced those he 
differed from, and never led those with whom he agreed. He expressed 



MR. BLACK TO MR. WILSON. 67 

bis dissent from the Southern members on several questions, but no man 
among us took better care than he did to avoid giving cause of personal 
offence. He acquired no ascendency at the council board, and claimed 
none ; he proposed no measure of his own, and when he spoke upon the 
measures originated by others, he presented no views that were new or at 
all startling. He and I never once differed on any question, great or 
small ; and this, though of course accidental, was still so noticeable that he 
said he was there only to give me two votes instead of one. He did not 
differ with Mr. Holt on any important question concerning the South 
more than once, and that was when the compact, afterwards called a truce, 
about Fort Pickens was made. He must have agreed with the President 
when he agreed with Mr. Holt, for the latter gentleman declared most 
emphatically that the President constantly gave him a " firm and gene- 
rous support." He never insulted the President. Mr. Buchanan knew 
how to maintain the dignity of his place and enforce the respect due to 
himself as well as any man that ever sat in that chair. It is most certain 
that Mr. Stanton always treated him with the profoundest deference. If 
he had been rash enough to take on the airs of a bully, or had ever made 
the least approach to the insolent rudeness for which you desire to credit 
him, he would instantly have lost his commission, and you would have 
lost your spy. 

Among the versions which have been given of this false tale, yours is 
the most transparent absurdity ; for you give dates and circumstances 
which make it ridiculous. At a time when Floyd was in disgrace with 
the whole Administration — after all his brethren had broken with him, 
and he had been notified of the President's intention to remove him — 
when he was virtually out of office and completely stripped of all influ- 
ence — Major Anderson removed his command from Fort Moultrie to Fort 
Sumter. You assert that Floyd, hearing of this, forthwith arraigned the 
President and Cabinet for the act of Major Anderson, declaring it to be 
a violation of their pledges, though it was not done by them, and they 
had given no pledge on the subject. That he could or would make an 
arraignment for any cause of the body by which he had himself just be- 
fore been condemned is incredible; that he would arraign it on such a 
charge is beyond the belief of any sane being. But such, by your ac- 
count, was the occasion which Stanton took to display his superhuman 
courage. It was then that he armed his red right hand to execute his 
patriotic vengeance on that fallen, powerless, broken man. He must also 
have let fall at least a part of his horrible displeasure on the head of the 
President; else why did the President "tremble and turn pale ?" I said 
this narrative of yours was mere drivelling, and I think I paid it a flat- 
tering compliment. 

But to explode the folly completely, I referred you to the record, which 
I said would show that Major Anderson acted in strict accordance with 
orders sent him through the War Department, of which Floyd himself 
was the head ; and this you contradict. It is perfectly manifest that you 
examined the record, for you transcribe from it and print two telegrams 
exchanged between Floyd and Anderson after the removal of the latter 
took place. You saw on that same record the order previously given — 
the order on which Major Anderson was bound to act, and did act — and 
you have deliberately suppressed it. Nay, you go still further, and with 
the order before your eyes you substantially deny the existence of it. I 
copy for your especial benefit the words which relate to this point : " The 
smallness of your force (so say the instructions) will not permit you, per- 
haps, to occupy more than one of the three forts ; but an attack, or an 



68 MR. BLACK^O JMR. WILSON, 

attempt to take possession of either one of them will be regarded as an 
act of hostility, and you may then put your command into either of them 
which you may deem most proper to increase its power of resistance. You 
are also authorized to take similar steps whenever you have tangible evi- 
dence of a design to proceed to a hostile act.'''' 

There is the order in plain English words. To make out your assertion 
it was necessary to conceal it, and you did conceal it from your readers. 
But that is not all. You find a telegram from Major Anderson, dated on 
the morning after the removal, in which he says simply that he has re- 
moved, but says nothing on the grounds on which he acted. On 
that same record, and right beside the telegram, you saw a letter from 
Major Anderson to the War Department, dated the same day, in which 
he does refer to his orders, and says, " Many things convinced me that 
the authorities of the State designed to proceed to a hostile f/c<,"and then 
adds : " Under this impression I could not hesitate that it was my solemn 
duty to move my command from a fort which we could not probably have 
held longer than forty-eight or sixty hours to this one, where my poioer 
of resistance is increased to a very great degree." You totally ignore 
this letter, in which Major Anderson justifies his removal in the very words 
of the order, and pick out a hasty telegram in which nothing is said of his 
orders for the purpose of proving that he acted without orders — an as- 
sumption which the record, if honestly cited, would show to be utterly 
false. 

You will hardly venture to repeat your denial ; for beside the original 
record there are thousands of authentic copies scattered over the nation, 
and anybody can find it in Ex. Doc. H. R., vol. vi., IS'o. 26, p. 10. I do 
not trust myself to make any general remarks on this glaring instance of 
mutilated evidence. You are a Senator, and I acknowledge the Scriptu- 
ral obligation of a private citizen not to "speak evil of dignities;" but 
of a dignity like you it is sometimes so difficult to speak well that my only 
refuge is silence. 

You garble my words so as to make them appear like a denial that Mr. 
Stanton ever wrote any letter at all on the subject of the " Cabinet Scene," 
whereas I asserted that no letter ivritten by him tvould corroborate yoiir ver- 
sion of it. After coolly striking out from the sentence quoted the words 
which express my proposition, you proceed to contradict it by the state- 
ment of Mr. Holt, who says that a letter was written, but he declines to 
say what 7vas in it. 

I knew that Mr. Schell had addressed Mr. Stanton with the object of 
getting him to tell the truth and tear away the "tissue of lies" which so 
many hands had woven about this subject. If he answered at all, the 
presumption was that he would, answer truly ; and if he answered truly, 
instead of corroborating you, he must have denounced the whole story as 
a mere fabrication. Do you think now that in the absence of all evidence 
showing or tending to show the contents of the letter, we ought to as- 
sume that Stanton filled it with bragging lies ? 

I do not mean to let this stand as a mere question of personal veracity 
between you and me, though I have the advantage, which you have not, 
of knoioing whereof I affirm. But my denial throws the burden of proof 
upon you with its full weight. Recollect also that the strength of your evi- 
dence must be proportioned to the original improbability of the fact you 
seek to establish, and that the reasons ci y>r/or« for disbelieving this fact 
are overwhelmingly strong. All presumptions are against the idea that 
a man who dodged about among the abolitionists as their spy, and vowed 
himself to the secessionists as their ally, and all the time manifested a 



MR. BLACK TO MR. WILSON. 69 

dastardly dread of being discovered, would openly insult the President, 
or do anything else that was bold and violent. But you have taken the 
task of proving it ; and how have you done it ? 

I certainly need not say that Mr. Holt proves nothing by writing a 
letter in which he declines to tell what he knows. His expressive silence, 
on the contrary, is very convincing that he knew the truth to be against 
you. As little, nay less, if less were possible, do you make out of his 
speech at Charleston. He deals there in glittering generalities, sonorous 
periods, and obscure allusions to some transaction of which he gives no 
definite idea, except that Stanton was not an actor in it, but a spectator ; 
for he mentions him only to say that " he looked upon that scene." What 
the scene was he declared to be a secret, which history will perhaps never 
get a chance to record. 

Failing wholly to get anything out of Mr, Holt, you naturally enough 
resorted to Mr. Dawes ; and Mr. Dawes, willing, but unable to help you, 
called in the aid and comfort of his wife. " She," her husband says, " dis- 
tinctly remembers hearing Stanton tell at our house the story of that ter- 
rible conflict in the Cabinet." That is the length and breadth of her 
testimony. She remembers that Mr. Stanton told the story, but not the 
story itself. It was about a terrible conflict ; but we do not learn who 
were engaged in it, who fell, or who was victorious — how the fray began, 
or how it ended — only it was terrible. Was Mr. Stanton the hero of his 
own story, or was he relating the adventures of somebody else to amuse 
or frighten the company? Mrs. Dawes is undoubtedly a lady of the very 
highest respectability ; but with all that, you will find it hard to convert 
the idle conversations at her house into history; and the difficulty is much 
increased by the fact that neither she nor anybody else is able to tell what 
they were. 

The declaration of Mr. Holt that he would not reveal what he knew on 
this subject, and Mr. Dawes's statement that Mrs. Dawes told him that 
she heard Stanton tell something about it which she does not repeat, is 
all the evidence you offer on the point. Yet you affirm that this most im- 
probable and slanderous story is not only true, but sustained by the 
" declarations of Mr. Stanton to credible witnesses, and the positive aver- 
ments of Joseph Holt." Can this be mere ignorance ? I am tempted to 
believe that you have gone about the business with a set purpose to make 
yourself ridiculous. 

I fear very much that on this question, as on so many others, you have 
been guilty of a wilful suppressio veri. Did you not know that Mr. Holt's 
testimony would be against you, when you took advantage of his scru- 
ples about giving it ? Did not Mrs. Dawes recollect more than you have 
quoted ? I may be wrong in this suspicion ; but a man who mangles a 
public record must not complain if his good faith is doubted when he pre- 
sents private evidence. 

Mr. Attorney-General Hoar, believing this scandal to be true, tried in 
good faith to get the evidence which would prove it. When he found it 
to be false he passed over to you the letters which he had got in the 
course of his search, and you printed them. The lawyer was too honest 
to reassert a tale which he discovered to be unfounded ; but the politician 
had not magnanimity enough to retract it; and therefore he let you burn 
your fingers where he would not put his own. 

The story of a " Cabinet Scene," as it floated about among irrespon- 
sible newsmongers, seemed for a while like a formidable slander ; but you 
have made it utterly contemptible. 

YI. Your account of Mr. Cameron's retirement from the War De- 



70 MR. BLACK TO ME, WILSOX. 

pavtraent and Stanton's appointment on his suggestion demanded refuta- 
tion, because it not only perverted and misrepresented a fact of some 
general importance, but was a serious injury to Mr. Stanton's character 
as it then stood. Between these two men it did not seem as if there could 
be any relation which implied confidence or friendship. If Stanton him- 
L^ self was any authority for his own sentiments, he had no respect either 
for the horse contracts or the "nigger arming" (as he called it) of his 
predecessor, and Mr. Lincoln had just as little. Stanton was appointed 
not to carry out but to j)^^ «" ^"^ to Cameron's policy with all its cor- 
ruptions. I admit that since the evidence you have furnished of Mr. 
Stanton's duplicity in other matters, it becomes possible to believe he 
may have been insincere about this also. Still your attempt to deceive 
the public was inexcusable. 

Of my own knowledge I know nothing about Mr. Cameron's appoint- 
ment or removal ; but 1 will give you the main facts briefly and without 
the alia enormia, as I have them on undoubted authority, and as I firmly 
believe them. A bargain was made at the Chicago Convention in 1860, 
that in case of Lincoln's nomination and election, Cameron should re- 
ceive a Cabinet appointment. Mr. Lincoln was no party to this contract ; 
but after much persuasion and pressure he oonsanted to ratify it by try- 
ing Cameron as Secretary of War. Before the end of nine months the 
experiment ended, as you know, and as everybody else knows, in a com- 
plete and total failure. Mr. Lincoln, seeing this, determined to get rid 
of him, and expressed his resolution in a letter addressed to Mr. Came- 
ron, and carried by Mi*. Chase, then Secretary of the Treasury. That 
letter is not now in existence, but Mr. Chase described it as curt — that 
. . is to say, plain, short, and direct. Mr. Cameron understood and felt it as 
'^ an abrupt dismissal. He afterwards got it suppressed, and a correspon- 
dence different in its whole tenor and effect substituted in its place. Ever 
since then he has been trying to create the opinion that he retired from a 
Department full. of rich jobs, not only without compulsion, but in spite of 
the President's affectionate desire that he should remain and manage them 
as he had done before ; and he makes it a part of the story that he was 
permitted to designate his successor. He contrived to produce some be- 
lief of this on the mind of Mr. Chase; but if Mr. Chase had known more 
of Mr. Cameron's character and previous history, he might have been less 
credulous. 

Of the fact that Stanton was appointed on Cameron's suggestion we 
have not a spark of direct evidence except Cameron's own statement, and 
all the circumstances make that improbable. If the President made up 
his mind to remove the incumbent, he certainly would not have proceeded 
to execute his resolution by writing him a curt letter of dismissal without 
having settled upon somebody to succeed him ; for at such a time as that 
he could not mean to leave the War Department acephalous while he 
would be hunting a head for it. But concede that no thought was taken 
for the new oflScer before the removal of the old one, can it be that the 
President decided the whole questiou in favor of a man tiever mentioned 
before, on the mere suggestion of the officer he was discarding, and with- 
out seeking advice from those members of the Cabinet who still retained 
his favor? The suppressed letter is, "therefore, not only an important 
fact in itself, but it has the gravest influence on the credibility of Mr. 
Cameron's whole tale. Other questions signify but little in comparison 
to that. If the correspondence afterwards published was not that which ac- 
tually took place, we must presume everything against the party for whom, 
or at whose instance, the spoliation was committed. The short, plain, 



MR. BLACK TO MR. WILSON. 71 

direct, curt note, with which Mr. Lincoln opened the business, would 
have explained everything, if it had been permitted to see the light ; and 
it could not have been destroyed except for the purpose of making a false 
impression. This compels me to show that your conduct in the affair has 
been such as admits of no justification except that burning loyalty and in- 
tense patriotism which converts all vice into virtue. 

After your first article appeared, and before my answer to it, a leading 
and very distinguished member of the Republican party in this State told 
you that you had misstated the facts concerning Mr. Cameron's retirement 
and especially the important and principal fact of the suppressed note 
from the President ; and he referred to the Chief Justice, who, upon be- 
ing interrogated, gave you the authentic information that such a note had 
been written, delivered, and suppressed. Thereupon you solemnly pro- 
mised that if you ever had occasion to refer to the subject again, you 
would tell the lohole truth. Besides, Judge Chase, after my review of you 
wrote me a letter from Sandusky, Ohio, in which he said that he bore the 
note in question, and mentioned that he had also written to you. What he 
wrote you of course I do not know, but he certainly did not give you one ' 
version and me another. You had, therefore, the written statement of 
the Chief Justice, in addition to his verbal assurance. With all these 
lights before you, and with all the obligations of common veracity, 
strengthened by an express promise to tell the truth, what do you do 
in your second article ? Why, you simply stick to your first story. Nay 
you take great trouble to smuggle the truth away, and bury it out of 
sight ; for, instead of producing Judge Chase's letter to yourself, in which 
the fact, no doubt, is fairly stated, you give us an extract from another 
letter written by him to Cameron, from which you are " permitted to 
quote"— nothing whatever on the subject of that important letter. I for- 
bear to say much that ought to be said about this part of your behavior, 
because the distinguished gentleman before spoken of has taken you in 
hand, and will doubtless jerk an acknowledgment of the facts out of you 
in spite of all your shuffling. ' 

VII. A wor^ before we part about the two hundred and fifty thou- 
sand dollars raised ouf of the Treasury for Governor Morton. Taking 
your account of that business as correct, I proved in my former lette? 
that It was in the highest degree criminal. You left no escape from the 
conclusion that the parties were guilty of embezzlement under the act of 
1846. Your narrative of the transaction impressed it with all the marks 
of what IS called in the flash language of Washington "a big steal." 
lou showed that the parties themselves so understood it at the time, for 
you put a conversation into their mouths by which they are made to 
admit their liability to prosecution and imprisonment. 

I saw plainly that this could not be true. Mr. Stanton's worst enemies 
never charged him with that kind of dishonesty, and Governor Morton 
had a reputation which placed him far above the suspicion of such base- 
ness. Both of them may have had serious faults, but they would not / 
rob the Treasury under any circumstances, or for any purpose. I asked / 
three members of the Indiana delegation whether there was any founda- 
tion for your assertion ; they all answered no, and gave me the explana- 
tion which I used in my published letter. 

Your replication to this point is one of the most astonishing parts of 
all your wonderful production. I denied that Messrs. Stanton and Mor- 
ton had committed a felony, and gave a version of the affair which 
showed them both to be perfectly innocent. You grow ill-tempered and 
vituperative upon this, and charge me with " unconcealed, not to say 



72 MR. BLACK TO MR. WILSON. 

ostentatious, malignity." I confess this is turning the tables upon me in 
a way I could not have expected. In. general, the malignity is presumed 
against the party who makes an injurious charge, not against him who 
repels it. 

There might have been some hope for you yet, if you had recanted your 
first assertion, or admitted the errors of your statement, or made some 
effort to explain away the effect of it, by showing that you did not mean 
what you said. But you hold fast to every word of it ; not a pliable do 
you retract. ■ On the contrary, you insist that it is effrontery in me to 
affirm that a debt was due to the State, and that it was paid according 
to law. What you say in your last, in addition to your first statement, 
makes the case look worse than it did before. But it is not true. The 
payment was not made on account of arms furnished to loyal citizens in 
rebellious States, nor was the money given to the Governor, to be dis- 
bursed by him on his own responsibility, as agent of the President. 
That much I can say on the official authority of the present Secretary of 
War, who wrote me on the 27th of last month that " the transaction 
appears to be based upon the claims of the State of Indiana for expenses 
inciirred'xn raising volunteers." 

But Governor Morton is still above ground, and can take care of him- 
self. If he made a raise out of the public Treasury without authority of 
law, and in defiance of the penal statutes in such case made and provided, 
he owes it to you to confess his guilt fully and freely. If he is innocent 
(as I believe him to be), it is due to himself and the memory of Mr. Stan- 
ton that he deny your allegations, and exhibit the true state of the facts, 
without delay. 

The sum of the case, as it now stands, is this: Mr. Stanton put into 
the hands of Governor Morton, not a warrant as yoa say, but a requisi- 
tion, on which the (Governor got out of the Treasury two hundred and 
fifty thousand dollars. If this requisition was based on a just claim, and 
drawn against a fund appropriated to ihe payment of it, the whole trans- 
action was perfectly honest, exceedingly commonplace, and precisely 
similar to other acts done every day, before and since, by all the Secre- 
taries — a simple discharge of routine duty, involving no responsibility 
whatever, no honor, and no blame. But it suited your ideas to glorify 
Stanton by declaring that he took the great responsibility of helping Mr. 
Morton to the money contrary to law, against the principles of common 
honesty, and in violation of his oath, thereby exposing both himself and 
his accomplice to the danger of prosecution and imprisonment in the 
penitentiary. This was the feather you stuck in his cap; for this you 
think him entitled to the "grateful admiration of his /oy«^ countrymen." 
I sought to deprive him of the decoration you bestowed on him, by 
showing that the money was paid according to law on a claim satisfac- 
torily established, out of money regularly appropriated to that purpose. 
I tried to prove that it was not an embezzlement, and that there was 
nothing criminal in it. But this took the loyalty out of it, and left it 
without any merit in your eyes. Thereupon you fly iuto a passion and 
become abusive, which shows that your moral perceptions are very much 
distorted, and makes me fear, indeed, that you are altogether incor- 
rigible. 

This paper has grown much longer than I intended to make it, and I 
have no space for tiie exhortations I meant to give you in conclusion. I 
leave you, therefore, to your own reflections. 



THE END. 



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